KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite pub­lic dis­con­tent with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the par­ty will hand­i­ly win a gen­er­al elec­tion if called soon, a North Amer­i­can Caribbean Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NAC­TA) opin­ion poll has found.

Ac­cord­ing to the study by Dr Vish­nu Bis­ram, the PNM has the ad­van­tage be­cause the pub­lic does not view the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress as an al­ter­na­tive gov­ern­ment.

Bis­ram start­ed the poll on Oc­to­ber 1, in­ter­view­ing ran­dom vot­ers to re­flect dif­fer­ent de­mo­graph­ics.
 He found that vot­ers were dis­il­lu­sioned with lo­cal pol­i­tics and ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the process of elect­ing lead­ers and ex­ec­u­tives in the PNM and UNC.

The poll found that the Prime Min­is­ter or Op­po­si­tion Leader has enor­mous pow­er, giv­ing lit­tle chance to chal­lengers to their po­si­tion.

“Al­most every­one polled in a sur­vey says in­tra-par­ty democ­ra­cy is sore­ly lack­ing in the two ma­jor par­ties and at­tribute it as a pri­ma­ry rea­son for the coun­try be­ing sad­dled with poor gov­er­nance and weak par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tion from both sides,” Bis­ram stat­ed.

The gen­er­al feel­ing among those polled is that with­in the PNM, leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley will ef­fort­less­ly win re-elec­tion be­cause of the ad­van­tages of in­cum­ben­cy. Pollees feel the mem­ber­ship would not want to risk chang­ing lead­ers mid-term while in Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, they were con­cerned about the se­cu­ri­ty of the bal­lots dur­ing the mul­ti­ple days of vot­ing. Be­sides this, pollees said the elec­toral process in the PNM was more hon­est and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic than in the UNC, which held an in­ter­nal elec­tion ear­li­er this year.

They al­so felt that un­like in the UNC, the PNM lead­er­ship makes more ef­fort to in­cor­po­rate par­ty op­po­nents and does not view chal­lengers as en­e­mies of the leader or par­ty.

For the UNC, the pub­lic ques­tioned the in­tegri­ty and va­lid­i­ty of the in­ter­nal elec­toral process, with par­ty sup­port­ers and the pub­lic feel­ing the in­tegri­ty of the last elec­tions was im­pugned, taint­ed and not a true re­flec­tion of mem­bers’ choice.

Ac­cord­ing to UNC sup­port­ers, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her slate of can­di­dates would have faced more op­po­si­tion if the elec­toral process were free and fair.

“Some com­plaints against the UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­toral process were that it is a farce, a fraud, a sham, a joke, a mock­ery of democ­ra­cy, an un­fair se­lec­tion man­aged whol­ly and sole­ly to make pre­ferred con­tes­tants get elect­ed.”

There were al­le­ga­tions of skul­dug­gery in the UNC elec­toral process, with claims that the sys­tem was ma­nip­u­lat­ed and de­signed to de­feat chal­lengers.

The poll found that, un­like the UNC, there are few com­plaints about the elec­tion process in the PNM, with a more de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process in line with the ap­proach­es used to elect rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Par­lia­ment and lo­cal gov­ern­ments.

How­ev­er, the pollees feel that the process in both par­ties is bi­ased and un­fair against chal­lengers and de­cry the in­cum­bent leader en­dors­ing or run­ning a slate of can­di­dates against oth­ers.

“Based on the sur­vey, sup­port­ers of both par­ties are cry­ing for a more trans­par­ent, fair, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem to choose a leader and ex­ec­u­tives,” Bis­ram said.

It sug­gest­ed that one way to ad­dress the flawed or de­fi­cient in­tra-par­ty de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process in T&T is to em­u­late the mod­el utilised in the US, Cana­da, UK and Eu­ro­pean coun­tries, where there are de­bates among can­di­dates for lead­er­ship and a fair vot­ing sys­tem by mem­bers. The poll al­so sug­gest­ed a law grant­i­ng pow­er and fund­ing to in­de­pen­dent bod­ies con­duct­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tions and pri­maries of po­lit­i­cal par­ties among their mem­ber­ship.