MY EDITORIAL FOR THE WEEK Its Sunday morning in Trinidad and Tobago. In fact it is throughout the Carib Indies and the Western Hemisphere. What a glorious day. For us Catholics it is the feast day to commemorate the solemnity of the Assumption. Here in Trinidad we are officially into the silly year of a General Election. We have a very popular Prime Minister but an unpopular Peoples Partnership coalition government that on balance has performed reasonably well but carries a history of missteps. Missteps for a coalition in government is not unusual and the missteps have not been large but mountains have been built out of them by an Opposition hopeful of returning to the corridors of power.. In the end the choice will be whether to continue with a credible leader with a track record of performance or return to the old established party that was just removed from government amidst allegations of corruption, arrogance, and a spiraling murder rate. Each of the two major political groupings have base support of about 30% of registered voters while the newly formed party of Jack Warner commands about 5%. The balance of 35% of the electorate is a floating vote that generally determines the outcome. Each major party can claim about 15 seats on their base support and there are about 9 seats that are called marginals which are determined by the educated non committed floating vote. My bet is that with new electoral rules that will eliminate the split vote of third parties on a first ballot, the floating vote will turn out in its numbers on the second ballot and in the marginals will decide the result of the poll on such issues as the economy, the perceived general state of law and order, and the performance of the government the missteps notwithstanding. If the government survives the first ballot then the Opposition may be in for a shocker in the second round of voting. Thats why there is so much noise over the recent amendments to the electoral process which really serve to strengthen the democratic process by eliminating plural wins in the marginals.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 09:12:24 +0000
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