Caribbean & Central America - October 2014 (ISSN 1741-4458)

Trinidad & Tobago’s main opposition party, the People’s National Movement (PNM), now led by Keith Rowley, has an impressive history of bouncing back from electoral disaster. The general election of May 2010 was one of those disasters, but the latest opinion polls suggest that the PNM is running neck-and-neck with the ruling People’s Partnership (PP) alliance, headed by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of the PP’s dominant constituent, the United National Congress (UNC).

To a large degree, the PNM’s May 2010 electoral disaster was self-inflicted. Then leader, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, completely misjudged the mood of the electorate by calling a general election half way through his term. The idea appeared to be to head off a no confidence motion alleging wrongdoing in the operation of the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad & Tobago (Undecott), but the manoeuvre simply served to turn Undecott into an electoral issue rather than just a parliamentary one. The 2010 election also came on the heels of the sharp recession of 2009.

As a consequence, the PNM saw its representation in the lower house collapse from 26 seats to 12. The PP won 29, with the UNC taking 26, the Congress of People (COP) winning six, and the Tobago Organization of the People (TOP) winning two.

But the PNM has overcome worse electoral setbacks than this. In 1986, having dominated politics for 30 years, it was left with just three seats against the 33 won by the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). However, it returned to power in 1991 and retained a share of power with the NAR in 1995. It lost power again in 2000, to the United National Congress (by 19 seats to 16), but only for a year. It took power after the tied election of 2001 and went on to win the two subsequent elections.

The latest opinion polls suggest that another political resurrection is possible this time around. A poll commissioned by Trinidad Express Newspapers in September puts the PP on 34% and the PNM on 32%, with 4% going for former-PP cabinet minister Jack Warner’s Independent Liberal Party (ILP), 4% for ‘others’, and 26% undecided.

This is a statistical dead heat, but the PNM is recording stronger support in the key marginal constituencies. The PNM has a 17-point advantage over the PP in its own safe seats, while the PP has a 23-point advantage over the PNM in its safe seats. In the marginals, however, the PNM appears to be ahead of the PP by eight percentage points. These are the 11 seats that changed hands between the 2007 and 2010 general elections.

Another bonus for the PNM in the marginals is the fact that Rowley is showing a plus 10% favourability rating in these seats while the prime minister has a minus 2% rating. This is notably different from the prime minister’s overall standing of 46% favourable to 38% unfavourable. Overall, Rowley has 42% giving him a favourable rating against 40% viewing him unfavourably.

However, this does not necessarily make the PNM favourite to win the 2015 contest. If the constitutional changes currently being pushed by the PP are implemented, then the calculations may change. The important new component would be the requirement for run-off elections in constituencies where the winner has not secured 50% of the vote.

No one quite knows how this will play out, and there are reasons for believing that supporters of minority parties may be more likely to switch allegiance to the PNM. However, more significant than that is the finding of the latest opinion polls that PNM voters are considerably less likely than PP voters to turn out in the second-round vote.

The Trinidad Express poll found that about one-in-three third party supporters would return to vote for the PNM in the second ballot, while only about one-in-six would do so for the PP, with the rest not voting a second time. But much more importantly, only 71%of PNM supporters currently say that they would return to vote in the second ballot against 84% of PP supporters who say they would return to the polls.

This effect is just as pronounced in the marginal constituencies as elsewhere, nullifying the PNM’s current lead in these contests. And, it should be remembered, the PP only has to retain three of the 11 marginal constituencies to secure its majority.

One person who is getting excited by the potential closeness of the 2015 election is Warner, who is currently the MP for Chaguanas West (having resigned from the seat when he left the PP over corruption allegations and then won it back as an independent in the subsequent July 2013 by-election). As noted above, the ILP is showing 4% support, prompting Warner to declare after the publication of the Trinidad Express poll: “One thing for certain. Based on polls, what we know is that no government can be formed without the support of the ILP, and the ILP cannot form the government without the support of other parties.”

Warner was important to the PP alliance as he was an Afro-Trinidadian in a party which found most of its support among the 40% of the country’s population that is of Indian origin. According to the 2000 census, people of African origin make up a further 37.5% of the population, with 20.5% of mixed race, 1.2% ‘other’, and 0.8% unspecified.

But for the moment, Warner appears to be leaning towards the PNM. With considerable chutzpah, Warner has asked Trinidadians to forgive him for helping to bring what he terms “the most corrupt government” to power. When asked if the ILP could support the PP after the next elections, he says: “If they can sanitize themselves it will be up to the membership to decide.” By contrast, he is saying of the PNM: “If the PNM looks more and more attractive, we have no problem talking to the PNM.”

Persad-Bissessar and the PP will be hoping that the strengthening economy can help them shift more of the 26% undecideds into the PP’s camp in time for the election, and certainly the economic cycle should prove more forgiving to her than it did to her predecessor, Manning when he made his ill-fated decision to call an early election in May 2010. As should have been obvious to Manning at the time, it is the PP that has benefitted from the bounceback from the 4.4% economic contraction in 2009.

While the economy managed only 0.2% growth in 2010 and declined again in 2011, by 2.6%, it has been on an upward trajectory since then. It recorded growth of 1.2%, in 2012 and an estimated 1.6% in 2013. This year growth is likely to be 2.3%, with 2.1% inked in by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2015.

In its June assessment of the Trinidad & Tobago economy, the IMF noted that the economy “is embarking on sustainable growth”, that inflation had fallen to 5.6% (in 2013), and that unemployment dropped to a record low of 3.7% during 2013. Furthermore, in 2013 the current account surplus was 11.8%, while fiscal policy remains “relatively expansionary” without causing debt problems (central government external debt was only 6.2% of GDP at end-FY 2013).

There are problems ahead, as both the IMF and the Central Bank have indicated, but they are unlikely to have much on an impact ahead of election day. The IMF’s concerns are medium term, warning that “absent a wide-ranging program of reforms, structural impediments will continue to hamper non-energy investment”.

The Central Bank’s concern is shorter term, but still relatively non-threatening to the PP’s electoral prospects. The bank announced a modest 25 basis points tightening on 26 September (the first such tightening in four years) and cited rising inflation and higher public spending as the reasons for the tightening. The Central Bank issued a statement saying that a “sharp unptick in food prices pushed headline inflation up to 7.5% in August 2014 from 3% in June 2014. The statement added: “Looking ahead, higher public spending through the expansionary 2014/2015 budget is likely to add to already elevated liquidity levels…and potentially push up inflation in the coming year.” But the bank’s move only raises the repo rate to three percent and this should not cause much distress in the short term.

In conclusion, Persad-Bissessar and the PP should have a fairly clear run through to election day, and that coupled with the likely pro-PP effects of the constitutional changes (if implemented) should favour the PP. But the PNM is by no means out of it, and the maverick Warner, who appears to be leaning towards the PNM, remains impossible to kill off politically.

• “To a large degree, the PNM’s May 2010 electoral disaster was self-inflicted. Then leader, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, completely misjudged the mood of the electorate by calling a general election half way through his term. The idea appeared to be to head off a no confidence motion alleging wrongdoing in the operation of the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad & Tobago (Undecott), but the manoeuvre simply served to turn Undecott into an electoral issue rather than just a parliamentary one. The 2010 election also came on the heels of the sharp recession of 2009.”

• “While the economy managed only 0.2% growth in 2010 and declined again in 2011, by 2.6%, it has been on an upward trajectory since then. It recorded growth of 1.2%, in 2012 and an estimated 1.6% in 2013. This year growth is likely to be 2.3%, with 2.1% inked in by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 2015.”