At a time of what can be described as maximum global publicity, deriving from the challenges involving the arrest of former CONCACAF President and Minister of National Security in the People’s Partnership Government Jack Warner, Trinidad Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has announced general elections to be held on September 7th. But the connection between the two events is largely fortuitous, in the sense that the Trinidad & Tobago Parliament has reached the end of its tenure.
Nonetheless, Prime Minister Bissessar will probably have been relieved at the action essentially initiated by agencies, pre-eminently the FBI, of the Government of the United States. For with a possibility of Warner’s successful re-election to the Trinidad & Tobago House of Representatives after his departure from both the Cabinet and House of Representatives, it now appears that the American action has led to his virtual political decapitation, and has relieved the Prime Minister from having to cope with him during the election campaign.
No doubt too, Ms Persad-Bissessar and her United National Congress (UNC) will feel more confident about making the electoral campaign a straight fight between her party (whether or not in coalition again with the Congress of the People (COP) under the People’s Partnership (PP) banner) and the People’s National Movement (PNM) led by Dr Keith Rowley.
In the last general elections, held on May 24, 2010, the PP decisively defeated, by 29-12, the PNM, then led by an already struggling Patrick Manning. The indications at that time were that the electorate was dissatisfied with Manning’s conduct of the government, and in a sense, the PNM supporters were probably relieved when ill-health forced him to leave the leadership of the party, and Keith Rowley, who had already been showing dissatisfaction with his style of leadership, was elected as leader.
A poll taken in March of this year has indicated a favourable attitude towards the PNM, and the electorate will be anxious to see, as the campaign proceeds, whether there is any substantial change in support for the party. At that time, the PNM registered a 31% favourability, while the PP registered 26% and a healthy 33% declared themselves to be undecided. But on the other hand, 50% of the electorate showed partiality to Persad-Bissessar, while 40% did likewise in respect of Rowley.
It would seem that the government will probably not be depending so much on the electorate’s perception of the morality (or lack of it) of its own leadership, which Warner would obviously be anxiously hitting at as the campaign proceeds, and as he seeks to show the UNC/PP as deeply involved in allegations of corruption as he himself is now claimed to be. And in a sense the government holds a card, to the extent that its own hope will be that the required extradition of its disgraced former companion, will take place shortly, reducing, or indeed removing, his capacity to directly engage in the campaign at all.
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar will, however, still be wanting to shift the focus from the challenge already being posed by Warner, of credibly indicating any malfeasance on the part of her government. Note will have been taken of a post-election date comment in an editorial in the Trinidad Guardian, one of the country’s leading newspapers, to the effect that recently, “the governing party received the lowest proportion of votes when respondents were asked the question of who they trusted to successfully address their concerns about corruption.”
In that regard, the Prime Minister will probably be focusing on an angle which she and her government have been practising for some time now, this being the perception of the economy of Trinidad & Tobago as consistently demonstrating a capacity for economic stability and growth, and as a prime destination among Caricom states for international investment, particularly in the country’s prime attraction, the further exploitation of industrial activities based on its natural gas.
And a corresponding signal of this comes from a recent statement by the Governor of the country’s central bank, indicating that “despite the collapse of oil prices and natural gas prices over the last nine months, the Government expects to realize a moderate fiscal deficit of around TTS2.5m, or 1.5% of GDP during the 2015 fiscal year,” an indication of all-round stability, certainly compared to the other countries of Caricom. The government’s focus, it appears, will be competence in an internationally destabilizing environment.
To some observers in Caricom, it would appear that the Prime Minister has not taken as intensive an interest in regional affairs as preceding PNM governments. They no doubt compare her activities to the visible pronouncements and actions by former Prime Minister Manning. Yet the Prime Minister has tended to insist that her government has been quite forthcoming towards the Community in two areas where it matters – extending financial assistance to member states finding themselves in difficulty in what has been a somewhat prolonged period of recession, and inducing its business class to seek out and participate in investment possibilities in the Region. And from that perspective, she will no doubt hold that Trinidad & Tobago can hold its head high in the regional environment.
All the signs are that the election campaign will be intense. The PNM, as opposition, will be careful not to appear to be gloating at the negative pictures being painted of the country in the international sphere. But the party will still want to maximize emphasis on what it believes to be a key card favourable to itself, at least in international circles, this being a perception of relative incorruptibility on its part , compared with its opponent.
Whether this will hold, or whether Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar will be giving credit for Jack Warner’s fate, is left to be seen.
