General Election 2010

I first asked this question in the run-up to the recent General Elections and got a few responses.  The general conclusion then was that voters only have the power to hold their representatives truly accountable when they stain their fingers in a polling station (or to a lesser extent in internal party elections, e.g. UNC, or leaving to form your own party, like COP).  This power becomes diminished when we revert to traditional voting patterns of supporting the status quo despite their poor performance.

What a week!  Before 24 May 2010, T&T was experiencing a drought in water and cricketing terms, and was racked in this weakened state by election fever.  After 25 May 2010, we got both rain and cricket, following a general election result that no professional pundit predicted.  So despite the WI senior men's cricket team snatched another defeat from the jaws of victory, the world seems to be unfolding as it should.

NOTE: The T&T Elections & Boundaries Commission (EBC) did not publish detailed results by party by constituency via its website at the time I wrote this.  As a result, I had to rely on unverified figures from third-party websites that claimed to have obtained them from the EBC.  The 2007 results were preliminary figures released on 05 Nov 2007 and the 2010 results were preliminary figure

I started picking through the manifestos - both here and here. And when I started, I fully intended to complete a good fact check on each manifesto. To some degree, I have - and honestly, after a few days of staring at the 'contents' of each manifesto... I'm somewhat disgusted. So I stopped.

I wish to deal with four issues arising on the campaign trail this year.

Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF)

The PNM manifesto has highlighted the HSF balance of US$3.2 billion as being one of their major achievements despite the global economic turmoil. However, if you check other official documents, there appears to have been an unexplained lack of deposits for five of the last six quarters. This suggests that the HSF is not as high as it could have been, and raises questions about the approval of the deposit on 01 May 2010.

According to press reports, the Hon.

Disclaimer: To be clear, I will be expressing opinions on the PNM manifesto as well. And since I am not voting in this General Election and have been irked by both sides, I am being as fair as possible.

In reading both manifestos for the General Election 2010 here in Trinidad and Tobago, I've decided to change the way that I'm going through them. The majority of both manifestos is rhetoric and promises, much of which can't be proven or disproven. That is politics - but it isn't necessarily democracy.

An interesting, but incomplete, conversation on facebook made me wonder: what methods do we have in T&T to hold the winning politicians to their campaign promises after 24 May 2010?

Disclaimer: To be clear, I will be expressing opinions on the People's Partnership manifesto as well. And since I am not voting in this General Election and have been irked by both sides, I am being as fair as possible.

This general election has seen the most social media usage in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. On Facebook, I've been getting more friend requests from politicians than pretty women - a horrible thought in my book with aged politicians wanting to be my friend for political expediency. Ahh, the trials and tribulations of being on Facebook...