DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts say a com­bi­na­tion of ar­ro­gance, pub­lic dis­sat­is­fac­tion with Stu­art Young’s se­lec­tion as prime min­is­ter, wide­spread out­rage over salary in­creas­es for politi­cians, and grow­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic pres­sures con­tributed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) de­feat in Mon­day’s elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Shane Mo­hammed, sev­er­al is­sues have weighed heav­i­ly on the pop­u­la­tion, in­clud­ing re­duced ac­cess to the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es (GATE) pro­gramme, ris­ing un­em­ploy­ment—even among pro­fes­sion­als such as med­ical doc­tors and de­gree hold­ers—soar­ing food prices, in­fla­tion, in­creased pover­ty, a high cost of liv­ing, and bur­den­some tax­a­tion.

“It was as if we were faced with bat­tered woman syn­drome. We were get­ting licks. We were get­ting bouffed by our em­ploy­ees. The peo­ple that we em­ployed to gov­ern our busi­ness were ar­ro­gant to us, ag­gres­sive to us,” he said.

“The coun­try had reached the point that the lev­el of ar­ro­gance, the treat­ment of peo­ple, look­ing down and talk­ing down to the peo­ple, not un­der­stand­ing that ac­tu­al­ly ser­vant lead­er­ship is what is re­quired in the po­lit­i­cal are­na ... I think the fuse just blew.”

Mo­hammed said out­go­ing prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who re­placed Dr Kei­th Row­ley on March 17 and called an elec­tion the fol­low­ing day, failed to prove he could lead the coun­try in­to a new era.

He al­so crit­i­cised the con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion to raise politi­cians’ salaries, call­ing it a di­rect in­sult to the pub­lic.

“Be­cause Dr Row­ley felt that he did hard work for ten years as prime min­is­ter, or nine and a quar­ter years as prime min­is­ter, and he de­served an in­crease. And every­body in his gov­ern­ment de­served an in­crease. And you know what? They lost the elec­tion, but they went home singing very hap­pi­ly and mer­ri­ly, like Pig­gy on the Rail­way, with their pock­ets filled.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James al­so point­ed to pub­lic re­sent­ment over the per­ceived im­po­si­tion of a leader not cho­sen by the peo­ple. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that the salary hike was the most dam­ag­ing fac­tor.

“This is in a con­text in which every­body has bills to pay. Every­body has to face su­per­mar­kets and oth­er places that we fre­quent.

“It’s not as if they were bad­ly off in the first place. I think peo­ple were un­hap­py. In fact, some peo­ple were dis­gust­ed that that could be the case.”

He al­so high­light­ed un­re­solved ques­tions about eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, crit­i­cis­ing the coun­try’s con­tin­ued over-re­liance on oil and gas. He not­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s hopes were pinned on the cross-bor­der Drag­on gas deal with Venezuela, which fell apart fol­low­ing the re­vo­ca­tion of two OFAC li­cences.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, James said Row­ley’s fail­ure to de­liv­er on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my was a crit­i­cal short­com­ing, ar­gu­ing that his au­ton­o­my bills failed be­cause he was “push­ing the wrong mod­el” with­out prop­er­ly con­sult­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go.