From POPPG to COP - evolution of a third party

October 30, 2009 by Ian Ramjohn

I have voted only four times in my life¹ - one local government and three national elections.  And 100% of my voting pattern can be explained by a single factor - I voted for the Muslim candidate.²  Combine that bit of information with my surname and it's easy to conclude that my vote is driven simply by identity politics.³

It would be easy.  But while it would prodict my voting patterns fairly well, but it wouldn't do much to explain why I voted the way I did, nor would it be a useful predictor of future scenarios.  

As I mentioned on Monday, saying that "corruption, on its own, does not decide elections in Trinidad: Race does" (as Selwyn Ryan did) turns correlation into causation.  Voting patterns and election victories can be explained in terms of race, but saying that "race decides elections" is an oversimplification.  Electoral victory depends on a combination of building coalitions and motivating your base.  Add to that the fact that we don't have national elections, we have a series of local elections that are won constituency-by-constituency.  More to the point, if race decided elections, one would expect that we had experienced substantial demographic shifts over the last 40 years, an expectation that's not supported by the facts.

There's more to a political party than simply the Cult of the Leader.  Successful political parties are build on a constituency, on a set of ideas and goals that unite a group of people.  Since 1956, one of those political constituencies in Trinidad⁴ is predominantly Afro-Trinidadian and has traditionally supported the PNM.  Another is predominantly Indo-Trinidadian, and has supported a variety of parties over time - the DLP, the ULF, the UNC.  But I think there's pretty clear evidence that there's at least one more political constituency in Trinidad.

Prior to 1956 there were several political movements vying for the support of the Afro-Trinidadian working class - the POPPG, the Trinidad Labour Party, and the Butler Party.  Unlike the Butler Party, the POPPG and the TLP drew their leadership from the nascent middle class.  Albert Gomes was the son of Portuguese shopkeepers.  Cipriani was of Corsican ancestry.  Roy Joseph the son of Lebanese immigrants.  Although white, they were not "socially white".  Unlike the English and French creoles, they did not have automatic representation in the halls of power.  Once Eric Williams emerged on the political scene, they saw their political base evapourate.  But together, the POPPG and the TLP managed to attract about 10% of the electorate in 1956.  Small, but not inconsequental.

The POPPG and the TLP joined with Bhadase Sagan Maraj's PDP to form the DLP, and together they dealt Williams his only electoral defeat - the 1958 Federal elections.  When race became a central issue to the DLP in the 1961 elections, the non-Indian element of the DLP's constituency defected to the PNM.  As the party fragmented in the lead up to the 1966 elections, a portion of that constituency returned - the "middle class" Liberal Party won about 10% of the vote in 1966.  

The 1970s saw the further fragmentation of the political opposition.  This led to an increasing dominance of the PNM, culminating in their huge wins in the 1980 Local Government elections.  But out the this came the Organisation for National Reconstruction, which despite winning "not a damn seat" in the 1981 General Elections, managed to capture 22% of the vote (as compared to 15% by the ULF, which ended up with 8 seats).  The PNM managed to attract almost 53% of the vote, and won 26 of the 36 seats.

Race, they say, decides elections. 

The ONR was not an Indian party.  With the PNM and the ULF both at least nominally parties of the left, the ONR staked out a centre-right position.  The party managed to combine the old  "mixed-race middle class" petty bourgeoisie element with black and Indian small businessmen and professionals.  That group formed a key element in the NAR, which swept to a 33-3 victory in 1986.  They stayed with the NAR in 1991 when it took 24% of the vote, but won no seats in Trinidad.  By appealing to this constituency, Basdeo Panday was able to win the 1995 and 2001 elections.  In 2007 COP captured 22.6% fo the vote, which I'd say is statistically indistinguishable from the 22.1% that the ONR captured in 1981, and hardly different from the 24% that the NAR captured in 1991.  (It should be noted, though, that the 1991 figures include the "Tobago NAR" which is an entirely distinct political constituency.)

In one sense, it's always possible to break anything down into racial terms, like I did when I spoke of "mixed middle class" and "black and Indian small businessmen and professionals".  That's because there are actual cultural characteristics of various ethnic groups.  But recognising the reality of ethnic groups, and recognising that membership in a group can predict one's voting behaviour isn't the same as saying that "race decides elections". 

Obviously, I still have lots to say on the topic...
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1. which is every election since I turned 18 for which I happened to be in Trinidad.
2. Or, at least, the candidate with the Muslim name.
3. Well, either that or I lived in the San Juan-Barataria constituency.
4. Yes, Trinidad.  Not Trinidad and Tobago.  Tobago's political culture is different, and I am largely ignorant of its underlying drivers.

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