That Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­part­ed from his pre­de­ces­sor and po­lit­i­cal god­fa­ther Dr Kei­th Row­ley, and in­vit­ed not on­ly Cari­com elec­tion ob­servers but those from the Com­mon­wealth and the Jim­my Carter Cen­tre, is a state­ment of great con­fi­dence in the prepa­ra­tion and con­duct of the gen­er­al elec­tion poll by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

His de­ci­sion not mere­ly says “I am my own man,” but al­so reg­is­ters as a po­lit­i­cal­ly savvy op­tion to adopt. As re­port­ed in the Sun­day Guardian, the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion from Cari­com and the Com­mon­wealth that their ob­servers will be here soon. There is no word yet from the Jim­my Carter Cen­tre.

The de­ci­sion qui­ets, even if mo­men­tar­i­ly, the use of ger­ry­man­der­ing and al­leged elec­tion rig­ging claims by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Al­low­ing the wish of the Op­po­si­tion to be trans­formed in­to re­al­i­ty al­so ho­n­ours the de­sire and right of the UNC to sta­tus as a po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive of half of the pop­u­la­tion of T&T. That is a sig­nif­i­cant non-par­ti­san point to be un­der­stood as, too of­ten, pol­i­tics in the sys­tem op­er­at­ed here leaves the Op­po­si­tion adrift in the po­lit­i­cal wilder­ness with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing a voice and pres­ence on crit­i­cal na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions. 

At the self-serv­ing end of the de­ci­sion on ob­servers, it means that if the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) were to win, con­tentions of elec­tion fraud by the UNC will not like­ly have too much trac­tion in the con­text of claims of sys­tem­at­ic rig­ging and fa­cil­i­ta­tion by the EBC. So, too, will the PNM, if the UNC wins, not be able to com­plain about elec­toral ger­ry­man­der­ing and bi­ased ad­min­is­tra­tion of the poll by the EBC.

If, how­ev­er, the ob­servers were to find ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties that could make a dif­fer­ence, then the out­look would change com­plete­ly and de­pend on who the ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties favoured.  

All of this apart, the ex­pec­ta­tion must be that based on the long his­to­ry of the con­duct of elec­tions by the EBC, with­out any proof of any ma­jor de­vi­a­tion from hon­esty and fair play in set­ting the stage for con­duct­ing the elec­tion, there must be con­fi­dence that the Com­mis­sion will re­peat its pre­vi­ous pat­tern of op­er­a­tion. 

As it is well-known, a gov­ern­ment in of­fice needs to have the will of its peo­ple in its favour to func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly. 

Ex­ter­nal­ly, if a gov­ern­ment is to take its place in the in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment amongst the du­ly elect­ed de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ments, it will need to have the en­dorse­ment of the three re­spect­ed ob­serv­er teams list­ed to be here.

For its part, the rep­u­ta­tion of the EBC, its board of com­mis­sion­ers, the ex­ec­u­tive and staff can rise or fall de­pend­ing on its con­duct of the poll. 

How­ev­er, giv­en the im­por­tance of the poll, the built-up an­tag­o­nisms be­tween the two ma­jor par­ties and the quest for pow­er, it is cer­tain that even be­fore and sure­ly af­ter the poll two weeks away, ob­servers or not, every ac­tion by the EBC will be scru­ti­nised un­der a ver­i­ta­ble mi­cro­scope and flagged for bias. For the cit­i­zens, what­ev­er the po­lit­i­cal par­ty op­tions un­der the sys­tem op­er­at­ed here, every­one is en­ti­tled to make a choice.