As the coun­try now gears up for cam­paign­ing ahead of the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts agree that both ma­jor par­ties—PNM and UNC—will have their work cut out for them, try­ing to con­vince the un­de­cid­eds and in­de­pen­dent vot­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Win­ford James, yes­ter­day’s lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion re­sults have ce­ment­ed the re­al­i­ty that Trinidad and To­ba­go is a two par­ty coun­try. He says a third po­lit­i­cal force may nev­er be able to ful­ly im­pact the po­lit­i­cal land­scape, notwith­stand­ing how many peo­ple con­tin­ue to call for change.

Dr James be­lieves there is a grow­ing num­ber of in­de­pen­dent vot­ers who sup­port nei­ther par­ty, and con­tin­ue to sit on the fence.

“While their num­bers are grow­ing,” he ex­plains, “they have not yet reached the crit­i­cal mass nec­es­sary to cause a se­ri­ous up­set in the way elec­tions and pol­i­tics oc­cur in this coun­try.”

He ar­gues that both ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties will need to work hard to woo—and win over—the grow­ing num­ber of un­de­cid­ed and in­de­pen­dent vot­ers.

And Shane Mo­hammed ob­serves yes­ter­day's low vot­er turnout sends a se­ri­ous mes­sage to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties, about the pop­u­la­tion's dis­en­chant­ment with them.

Ac­cord­ing to Shane Mo­hammed, says de­spite all their pos­i­tive spin, nei­ther po­lit­i­cal par­ty can claim any sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry.

He notes that the es­ti­mat­ed 22 per cent par­tic­i­pa­tion is even low­er than the low­est on record—23 per cent back in 1971, when the pop­u­la­tion would have been less than half a mil­lion peo­ple. Fast for­ward to 2019, an elec­torate of rough­ly 1.08 mil­lion, out of which on­ly 22 per cent vot­ed, and things do not look good for any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

Both men are of the view that the UNC po­lit­i­cal leader and Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has been hand­ed a po­lit­i­cal life line, which gives her a boost, head­ing in­to the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion…

They al­so agree that the PNM po­lit­i­cal leader and Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, has his work cut out for him over the next nine months, to en­sure his par­ty re­mains in of­fice.

In­deed, Shane Mo­hammed warns that nei­ther po­lit­i­cal leader can as­sume they can con­tin­ue with old elec­tion strate­gies.

As he puts it:

“Whether we like it or not, there is a pop­u­la­tion out there that is not go­ing to vote, if they feel that they are not go­ing to be heard, or are not go­ing to get de­liv­er­ables.”