And The Winner Is... The People. Maybe.
The local media will be filled with things about this election. The winners and losers will point at each other for some of the thuggery that took place, there will be plenty of rhetoric from both sides and there will be investigations - I'm sure - into corruption charges of the last regime. How do I know all of this? My friends, we've seen all of that before. It's the soap opera of regime change.
But there have been a lot of promises made in the People's Partnership Manifesto - one of the two manifestos I have been critical of. The good news is that we now only have to worry about one. Before we worry about it, I'd like to point out that the manifesto was thrown together in less than a month and that, by itself, should lead one to understand the merit of some of those promises. I have no doubt in my mind that if either party thought they could have gotten the vote by promising free cheese sandwiches on every other Thursday, they would have promised that.
And it's that disparity of promises between the manifestos that is worth considering. The PNM promised something that 11 out of 41 seats were interested in. An interesting but hopefully silly thing to notice is that, based on this map, the closer one gets to Venezuala the more likely you voted for the PNM. Roughly 90,000 people on the North and South of the Gulf of Paria were majorities for their areas.If the People's Partnership could win everywhere else, how did they not win there? Look at the map. Isn't that odd?
What were the PNM promising in those areas that made them choose the PNM by majority? And why didn't the rest of the country buy into it?
On another note, all those accusations of voter padding just fell through the floor. And now no houses will be taken down - something that, in the long term, can hurt private property owners even more than a flawed property tax reform when they suddenly sprout neighbours. The lawyers will make the money, the politicians will pocket their share and the status quo has simply changed masks. A vast majority of Trinbagonians disagree with me and might even think I'm a disgruntled PNM supporter, but I'm simply being pragmatic. The election is over. The new majority in Parliament have to make good on their promises - and with more than 2/3 of the seats, they can. There's really little in the way of excuses.
After all, the run for re-election has begun - and every single person who voted today has to remember that. Every person who supported someone who won a seat should see some positive change. Every person who supported someone who lost a seat - and there are a lot of those despite a sound majority in parliament - will be even a harder sell.
So we should expect a spike in crime - not because there will be more crime but because if the new government takes control of the crime situation as they claimed they would, more crimes will be reported, more criminals captured and more cases prosecuted successfully. So the statisitcs are supposed to go up.
The whole property tax reform issue has been, in all ways but formally, sunk. But there, too, is a potentially legitimate revenue source for a government that has probably inherited more concrete than money. By the way, wasn't that the 29th promise in the first 120 days of People's Partnership government? To find out how much money the treasury has?
I don't think the People's Partnership got elected by their manifesto. I believe they got elected on the platform of change, something borrowed from the U.S. as most things here seem to be. Remember Project Anaconda?
And so it will go. The government employees will remain the same. Their habits will likely remain the same. When I go to a government office tomorrow, I don't expect a sudden change. But some people will. And then all those MPs who won will be inundated with complaints... because those votes didn't come for free. Those votes are credit, and the 18.6% interest fee credit cards charge is nothing compared to a functional democracy.
So, for the winners, I offer my condolences. The election is over, the spotlight is on, and you promised results. Go to it, with vigor.
And to the losers - well... stay in the country in case we have questions. You know the routine.
- Taran Rampersad's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
The PNM seats
Most of the seats in the West were very close.
Diego Martin West - PNM (Rowley) 53%, COP 46%, Other 1%
Diego Martin Central - PNM 51%, COP 48%, Other 1%
Diego Martin North/East - PNM 51%, COP 49%
As you head closer to POS, the percentages widen....
The same kind of percentages were seen in La Brea and Point Fortin.
So I think this is good. A political party should not win all 41 seats. Opposition is necessary, and the race was very closely fought in the areas where PNM won, or at least 6 of their 12 seats (counting St. Anns East).
Oh, I agree.
I am glad that PP didn't take all the seats if only because there needs to be a strong force in Opposition to keep things as balanced as any Westminster system is. And lest we forget, the people who won were part of a pretty weak Opposition... and as such, they are accountable to some degree for the very reason that they were elected. Odd, isn't it?
not at all!
u ever thought maybe that the people of the west are well of and thus well educated? so they could not be fooled by the coalition? santa cruz at anns blue range west moorings....food for thought
Conversely
One could say that a lot voted where their bread is buttered. It's all academic, but it's worth looking into. One could even say that those areas are heavy with drug importation, but again, that is academic...
It most certainly does look odd though, doesn't it?
I live in the West
And I did not vote PNM. I couldn't vote for Patrick Manning. I couldn't vote for blatant corruption and money wastage. I couldn't vote for a Cart-Before-The-Horse Vision 2020.
I'm really proud of the people in the West. I knew Rowley would win his seat. He needed to stick around. And I'm proud that the PNM got a damn good run for their money in the west too. Winning by 2% and 3% in longtime PNM strongholds.
Actually...
... Based on the preliminary figures, six of the PNM's 12 seats are marginal seats - they won by less than 3000 votes. That includes all the Diego Martin seats (yes, Dr Rowley's as well). So even though PNM won those seats, not all PNM supporters are happy.
Further, the PNM lost votes in 39 of the 41 seats, so there is a clear denouncing of the PNM nationally. The PNM gained only in Fyzabad (2689 votes) and Oropouche West (1345) - and in both of those seats they still lost. Though their total in POS South and Sando West was higher than their 2007 figures, they did not gain the majority of the extra voters who turned out in those constituencies.
Even Mr Manning lost 584 votes compared to 2007, despite there being an extra 1218 votes up for grabs.
I don't get your reference to the rich or educated voting for the PNM. Educated and rich people live all over Trinidad and Tobago, not just in the PNM's constituencies.
So no: you haven't provided much food for thought at all.
The fact is that the electorate decidely rejected the PNM - and arguably Mr Patrick Manning himself - across the nation, but the 12 seats they won in 2010 had enough of a buffer from 2007 to withstand the swing to the People's Partnership.
Heh. Just made me think...
that if the PNM/UNC combination had actually worked, there would not have been a COP and thus there wouldn't have been a lost election and thus there would not have been a People's Partnership.
See, the UNC is in decline, too... too many dinosaurs in the PP for my liking, really. Probably because I remember where the skeletons are buried. :-)
my concern is
that the system is fundamentally flawed. The waste of it all. Just the advertising dollars spent, for the theatrical purpose of convincing people, the effort and energy wasted over the last five weeks, none of it has actually solved a single problem we have. Not one.
The talent is there to pull together campaigns on a moment's notice, to co-ordinate, motivate and manage teams into producing meetings, advertisements, walkabouts, flyers, loudspeaker cars, the whole apparatus of elections. Where does that go after the elections?
It is reminiscent of the buildup to Carnival and the lethargic slumber we fall back into afterwards. What a sodding waste! None of that energy, drive, purpose gets channeled into running the country. The mass of unmovable public servants built up over successive regimes ensures that. We have way too much government to be able to run the country any better.
One solution would be to trim the fat by outsourcing the work. Turn the current government employees into entrepreneurs and hire them back to do the same work. But this time, make them compete among themselves. Now, not in the way the PNM tried to do with the TTRA. But intelligently, selling the benefits both to the nation and to the public servants.
This could work so well in so many areas. Open education to competition. We are already doing this. Market forces have come into play to fill the deficiencies in our education system. Every teacher with a bit of brains, runs after-hour classes under his/her house. Fly-by-night schools pop up like weeds. We need to disable this education system and re-make it. Yes, it might drive the cost of education, but maybe not. Competition reduces prices, they say.
Government should be in the business of oversight, regulation, not implementation. That's what got us into the whole UDECOTT mess in the first place.
Smaller government, more oversight is the way forward. This can provide more employment and better employment. It could certainly release more people into the labour force, which Manning said was shrinking.
But more fundamentally, I believe the whole idea of party politics is wrong. Yes, we need some form of coordinated political effort, but the current structure wastes so much in confrontation instead of co-operation. People with talent are sidelined because they belong to the wrong party. They sit idle waiting for a chance to serve while less competent people screw up the job. We need to develop a way to filter this out.
The PP talks about term limits. I think five years is too long. My favourite political system, Switzerland, has a one year, non-repeatable, shared presidency. There's something important there. They seem to spend less time on arguing and more on getting things done.
In any case, I doubt constitution reform is going to happen under the PP. Not enough seats for one thing, and I doubt any party would change the status quo. The first job of a party in power, is to stay in power. That is the whole problem. We end up with a Manning type regime inevitably. Even if Kamla, the new mother of the nation, now earnestly believes she is going to make a difference, the course of events will steer her in the same direction.
The other point, on everybody's mind, is how do we, the people, control the government. Under our current system, we have just given Kamla and her posse license to do whatever she wants for five years. Kamla might really be an angel, but the rest of us aren't. The people surrounding her are all going to want payback, their piece of the cake. Hell, _I_ would love a government job.
As far as I know, there are no mechanisms that allow the people to make their voices heard during those five years. If there were, UDECOTT would never have happened. And despite all this talk about referendum this and referendum that, a referendum has no legal standing. The signatures that Steven Cadiz collected, had no impact on the government whatsoever. The only means of protest that seems to work, is burning tires in the street. Feedback by smoke signal.
There was another bit of grandstanding during the elections. Somebody called the Debate Commission came up with the idea of a debate between the candidates. To me, this was a truly useless brain fart. I like the idea of debates, but I think it is useless. People are not accustomed to debates. They think it is the same as arguing in a rum shop. I think people need to be taught how debates work. I think it should be a compulsory class in every level of education, from primary to tertiary. That way, maybe, people would be trained to look out for the tricks used by politicians in their campaign speeches. Otherwise, it is just more rumshop talk.
This all has to do with the question of literacy. The common definition of literacy probably covers the idea that someone can read the headlines in the newspaper. That they can sign their name. I never realised how many people right here in Trinidad and Tobago can't even do that. People don't read. They watch TV. They look at the pictures in the newspapers. I know it is hard for well-educated people to believe that. But it really is true. It shocks me every time I encounter it, but it is true.
It is not just that people can't read, it's that the ones who can, don't read. And this I think, is the bigger problem. People choose not to read. It's too much work. We complain about government, but how many of us actually go down to the government printery and buy any of the published documents there? I am as guilty of this as anyone. Who has the time? We'd rather watch a movie, which allows advertisers and movie makers the opportunity to shape our opinions.
I don't have the solution. I just have concerns.
Eh! Buh what de... ?!?
... You make me read all that and then offer no solutions? ;-)
hehe...
But you do have to admit that there are valid points in there. Understanding the problem is probably the first step toward a solution...
But yes, solutions would be nice. I think I'll start a political party named, "CTRL ALT DEL". CAD.
Hehehehe....
Nice post.
There's an argument about changing the system vs changing individuals. It's a paradox really, since you cannot do one without the other. But with this election, our first non-obviously-ethnic vote, did individuals change or was it the system (the politics of inclusion, not exclusion ala Winston Dookeran). If we neglect UdeCOTT (maybe it was a UdeCOTT election, maybe it was more). What changed?
And how do we keep changing?
I agree that party politics is inefficient, probably intended to be so. I agree that people, to a large extent, do not read. This is evidenced by the kinds of comments people make on our radio stations, newspaper commentaries, television talk shows. There was a whole lot of ignorance (and racism, 91.9 fm for example) broadcasted throughout this election. I almost flung the remote at my tv last night as a girl was bawling at Balisier House on Monday night about losing her social programmes due to the PP win. And her mother turned to the camera to scold the nation for being so stupid. I could not believe it.
Die-hard party fans confuse me. How can you vote the same way for your entire life? A political party is almost bound to mess up at some point, usually sooner rather than later. Even party membership... it's created to appeal to peoples' emotions over functionality.
About Switzerland's political system, it sounds nice but I highly doubt it could work here. What I would like to see for the PP's government is a 2-person team attached to each Ministry, either UNC/COP, UNC/NJAC, COP/MSJ etc to keep communication lines open and retain checks and balances. Further to that, I'd like to see Audit Committees formed (comprising individuals from the different PP interest groups) to oversee/coordinate/assess developments that relate to Legal Affairs (legislation reforms, backlog of cases, restructuring the Judiciary/legal framework), Crime (Policing, Detection, Investigation, Intelligence, Upgrades) and Health in particular. Those are my main areas that need immediate focus.
Reducing the size of the government is highly unlikely in the short term. In many Caribbean countries, the government services contribute the largest percentage to GDP. In T&T, we have the Energy Sector (45% in 2009) doing that. T&T's top contributing sectors to GDP in 2009 were: Petroleum, Distribution, Finance/Insurance/Real Estate, Construction, then Government Services, followed by Manufacturing and Other Services (in that order). We could do more to decentralize it though, which has been said many times before.
But you made an excellent point that we need to move along the spectrum from socialist to capitalist. How much will always be up for debate. The PNM (or Patrick Manning) is/was a very socialist regime. I say we give the PP 100 days before we start saying the election was a waste of time. After all, we tried. We played a hand with the cards we were dealt. What else could we do?
Pingback
[...] means the scenario of T&T getting its first unelected Prime Minister has been postponed. Taran Rampersad and BC Pires have each, in their unique ways, already recommended that we manage our [...]