Election suspense:

Jamaicans will be going to the polls on August 27 after prime minister’s Portia Simpson Miller finally announced a date for general elections.
We, in Trinidad and Tobago continue to be kept in suspense, as prime minister Patrick Manning, refuses to dip into his back pocket – the place where he said the date was being kept – and allow the country to collectively exhale.
Well, who knows, maybe the Trinidadian prime minister is waiting for his spiritual high-priestess to give him the go-ahead on the best time to set the election date depending on the planetary alignment.
In case, you haven’t heard it, controversial Tele-Evangelist, Benny Hinn, claimed that Mr. Manning, who wants to enter the priesthood after his political days are over,  does nothing without his high-priestess and even advises him on government policies.
But seriously, I’m not sure what Mr. Manning, declared fit and healthy last week by his Cuban heart doctors, is waiting for before calling the general elections. I’m wondering about his strategy about going down the wire.
His government seems to have done reasonably well with the economy, although many argue that much more could have been done given the huge revenues that have passed through the national coffers from the oil and gas sectors in particular, over the last five years.
I can only speculate but maybe Mr. Manning is probably waiting for the completion of various multi-story buildings that are going up all over the capital; the additional lanes and extensions on the highways or the construction of government houses throughout the country.
Maybe, he is also waiting for all the government ministries to complete their print, video and audio propaganda campaign on their various ’successes’ to unleash on the population. I’m told that the deadline date for this is July. So this might be a good hint.
The five-year term of Mr. Manning’s ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) however is fast approaching in October although the Constitution allows a three-month extension for the calling of elections so the latest date that elections can be held is January 2008.
All the tracking polls have put Mr. Manning’s party way ahead of others although many respondents have declared Congress of the People’s Political Leader Winston Dookeran as their best choice for prime minister.
Mr. Dookeran, a former Central Bank governor and a former Planning Minister, formed his owned party last year after taking serious body blows in the United National Congress (UNC), the official opposition party, after he was anointed political leader by veteran leader of the party, Basdeo Panday whom he felt was the best choice to broaden the UNC’s base of the mainly Indian population.
That changed immediately after Mr. Dookeran refused to be a puppet for the executive.
The UNC has since put Panday, who has several cases pending in the courts, back as the interim political leader. The party last week also joined forces with a number of fringe parties with the sole intention of “getting rid of the PNM.”
My own feeling about the Alliance UNC is that the accommodation cannot be sustainable if it is based on the single purpose of “getting rid of the PNM.”
With the accommodation or agreement based on such a weak foundation, the marriage of convenience is doomed to fail.
Without that bonding of a deeper common agenda of where it wants to take the country, besides “getting rid of the PNM” I can’t see how the Alliance UNC could survive.
There’s now a bit of gentlemanly squabble about who should lead the Alliance UNC, with one of the leaders declaring that with Mr. Panday’s long string of court troubles, he was not an attractive choice with the wider population outside his base support.
Bride-in-waiting Kamla Persad-Bissessar, named the parliamentary opposition leader when Mr. Panday was given a jail sentence after being found guilty of not declaring money in a London bank account, added to the confusion, when she said this week that she was asked to lead the Alliance UNC, which was denied by venerable leader himself and others who make up the fragile accommodation.
The COP, meanwhile is the only opposition party that continues to focus on issues facing the country.
They have refused to be sidetracked with the usual criticism by the UNC ( which seems to be focusing its attack more and more on the COP, rather than on the PNM) or by shenanigans that they were a COrPse or the ridiculous re-naming of Mr. Dookeran by the UNC, as Mr. Duck-and-Run.
The COP has been actively dealing with issues that seem to be dead with the other parties, such as agriculture and tourism.
No doubt, the up-coming elections are gearing up as a battle for control of the economy, one of the most vibrant and fastest growing in the Caribbean and in the Western Hemisphere.
The party which controls the majority of the 41 constituents – 39 in Trinidad and 2 in sister-isle Tobago – wins the elections. In the 2002 general elections, over 600,000 people were eligible to vote. The voting figure will increase by several thousands more in this coming elections.
With the oil and gas-based economy heading into its 13th consecutive year of economic growth, a main feature of the election’s campaign will be centered on the management of the economy by the ruling PNM.
The economy continues to do well, growing by 12 percent last year, following growth rate of 8 percent in the previous year.
The main impetus for the economic expansion in 2006 was the 20.6 percent increase in activity in the energy sector, which itself experienced a 16.9 percent increase in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, combined with a 37.4 percent increase in the refining of these products.
The energy sector which accounts for about 40 percent of GDP has averaged an annual growth rate of 14 percent since 2000, so it is very central to the country’s prosperity.
The government in a recent review of the economy said there were positive aspects in many areas including an historic achievement of “full employment” with recorded unemployment rate of 5 percent between October-December 2006.
The size of the economy doubled since 2000, achieving current GDP of TT$114.5 billion in 2006 from TT$51.4 billion six years ago.
The Heritage and Stabilisation Fund in which un-budgeted oil revenues are invested increased from TT$1.2 billion in 2004 to TT$8.79 billion at the end of 2006.
Of course, crime, the single major issue affecting the population at large, will be another hot issue on the political campaign.
The PNM will have to defend its poor record of seeing murders and kidnapping flourish under their watch despite the most sophisticated aerial devises, more police vehicles, more training and the introduction of Scotland Yard detectives in the local police service.
All in all, it’s gearing up to be a hot…and also comical political season.