AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are pro­ject­ing a tight Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions race, fore­cast­ing that both the UNC and PNM could take some dis­tricts from the oth­er’s po­lit­i­cal grasps.

They have al­so pro­ject­ed an­oth­er low vot­er turnout on Au­gust 14, with even few­er peo­ple go­ing to the polls than usu­al.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, in a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said while she an­tic­i­pates the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions will be shared equal­ly again be­tween the PNM and UNC, she does be­lieve the UNC will wres­tle away some dis­tricts from the PNM.

In the 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, the cor­po­ra­tions were even­ly split be­tween the PNM and the UNC, re­sult­ing in a 7-7 tie.

“I think that the UNC/NTA can take some dis­tricts from Tu­na­puna and San Fer­nan­do based on com­plaints about a lack of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. These have al­ways been mar­gin­al you see, based on the gen­er­al elec­tions. If the PNM sup­port­ers are tru­ly dis­grun­tled and don’t come out, then the UNC/NTA al­liance could make some in­roads,” Ram­per­sad said.

But po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said he be­lieves the UNC will lose one of its three dis­tricts in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, as he pre­dict­ed Mar­cus Gird­harie, the for­mer UNC coun­cil­lor for the area, will take his sup­port in Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la with him to the PNM.

“And I al­so have my eyes on Mara­bel­la West with re­gards to John Michael (Al­i­bo­cas) and I al­so have my eyes in Co­coyea/Tarou­ba be­cause the mar­gin there in 2019 was just 30 votes,” Mo­hammed ex­plained in a tele­phone in­ter­view.

How­ev­er, he said the PNM should be wor­ried about los­ing even more ground in the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

As it stands, the UNC con­trols the cor­po­ra­tion by virtue of win­ning five of the eight dis­tricts in 2019.

Mo­hammed said the PNM will strug­gle to hold on­to Va­len­cia West and San­gre Grande North­east, which the par­ty won in 2019 by 166 votes and 144 votes re­spec­tive­ly.

When it comes to vot­er turnout, Mo­hammed pre­dict­ed no more than 30 per cent of those el­i­gi­ble to vote will both­er to do so.
In 2019, on­ly 34.49 per cent of the 1,079,976 peo­ple el­i­gi­ble to vote cast their bal­lots.

In 2016, it was mar­gin­al­ly less at 34.34 per cent.

“Tra­di­tion­al­ly, peo­ple do not pay at­ten­tion to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions and the nar­ra­tive and com­mu­ni­ca­tion have been unin­spir­ing, so they (po­lit­i­cal par­ties) are on­ly tar­get­ing tra­di­tion­al vot­ers. Peo­ple who will re­al­ly make an im­pact are the swing vot­ers such as the young pro­fes­sion­als who be­lieve that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are say­ing some­thing that in­spire them to see trans­for­ma­tion­al change. But af­ter eight weeks of cam­paign­ing both ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties have failed to in­spire the pop­u­la­tion so I don’t see a turnout of high­er than 30 per cent,” Mo­hammed posit­ed.

Mean­while, Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said while there is a high lev­el of hype in this elec­tion sea­son, with is­sues on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form go­ing above and be­yond the re­mit of a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment con­text, he too does not be­lieve they are in­spired enough to break the vot­ing trend.

“I don’t think the pop­u­la­tion has been en­thused enough to sig­nif­i­cant­ly change their vot­ing pat­tern, so again where­as in the last two Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions the turnout was just about 35 per cent, I would prob­a­bly hold to the be­lief that it will still av­er­age un­der 40 per cent,” Ra­goonath said.
Ra­goonath, who has been close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the cam­paign as head of the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, said the UNC has tried to ap­peal for more vot­ers to come out but he does not be­lieve it will be suc­cess­ful.