To­mor­row is Lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions day and cit­i­zens would be well ad­vised to ex­press their opin­ion at the bal­lot box. Vot­ing is the most ef­fec­tive way to ad­dress politi­cians. In two years this ad­min­is­tra­tion’s term of of­fice will end. To­mor­row’s vote will be seen as a rough guide to its pop­u­lar­i­ty.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions have tend­ed to be un­der­whelm­ing with low vot­er turnout. Will this elec­tion be any dif­fer­ent?

A low vot­er turnout al­ways favours the PNM, the par­ty with the most suc­cess­ful elec­toral ma­chine. But if lo­cal gov­ern­ment is about lo­cal is­sues, it is al­so about tra­di­tion­al po­lit­i­cal turf. One would not ex­pect the PNM to be un­seat­ed in its tra­di­tion­al strong­holds any more than the UNC in their tra­di­tion­al ar­eas. Any change is at the mar­gin.

The ap­proach has been to use this elec­tion cam­paign to ex­per­i­ment in prepa­ra­tion for the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. The cam­paign be­came no­table for its low points. The plat­form rhetoric was not co­or­di­nat­ed and failed to ad­dress lo­cal is­sues. Na­tion­al, gen­er­al elec­tion is­sues were the key items be­ing dis­cussed, not mat­ters that lo­cal coun­cil­lors could ei­ther change or in­flu­ence.

This ex­plains why the UNC en­ter­tained an elec­toral com­pro­mise with oth­er untest­ed po­lit­i­cal par­ties. It cost lit­tle and it acts as a test to de­ter­mine if a wider elec­toral coali­tion should be con­tem­plat­ed in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion as the best way to oust the PNM. If the new par­ties do well and win a few seats, it would give the UNC the op­por­tu­ni­ty to forge a coali­tion to weak­en the PNM in their tra­di­tion­al ar­eas and al­low the UNC to fo­cus on mar­gin­al seats. By Tues­day we will know the re­sults of this ex­per­i­ment.

In­stead of demon­strat­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ma­tu­ri­ty on the cam­paign trail, there were sev­er­al puerile po­si­tions on cer­tain na­tion­al is­sues. Na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and crimes against the per­son fea­tured promi­nent­ly on the UNC plat­form, in­clud­ing gun con­trol is­sues like “stand your ground” laws which have no place on the lo­cal scene. Why did the events af­fect­ing the Na­tion­al Com­mer­cial Bank of Ja­maica, a man­age­r­i­al dis­pute in­volv­ing se­nior ex­ec­u­tives’ pay and work­ing con­di­tions in Ja­maica be­come a plat­form talk­ing point? The T&T fi­nan­cial sys­tem was nev­er at risk.

The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was again at­tacked, a peren­ni­al scape­goat to be rub­bished by both po­lit­i­cal par­ties, mak­ing it hard for the in­sti­tu­tion to re­tain some sem­blance of cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­spectabil­i­ty. Both the Prime Min­is­ter and the UNC Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader failed to act re­spon­si­bly in this re­gard.

Not to be out­done, the Chief Sec­re­tary al­so took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to out­line his case for To­ba­go’s “au­ton­o­my” by sign­post­ing the im­por­tance of the two “To­ba­go” par­lia­men­tary seats as bar­gain­ing chips in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. In a wide-rang­ing in­ter­view with CNC3, the Chief Sec­re­tary, al­so queried the lack of “re­spect’ for the THA by in­de­pen­dent arms of the state, the Li­cens­ing Of­fice and the Po­lice Ser­vice.

The re­al­i­ty is that all po­lit­i­cal sides, young and old, ex­pe­ri­enced and less ex­pe­ri­enced, have failed to demon­strate ma­tu­ri­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and re­spect for na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions or the na­tion­al psy­che. How will they be­have dur­ing the 2025 elec­tion when the stakes will be high­er?