– questions for the gov’t and opposition as pressures rise
NOW  that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has called  a snap general election even before mid-term of his People’s National Movement five-year administration, the pertinent question is not WHEN he will announce the election date, but WHY face the electorate now?

Leader of the main opposition United National Congress (UNC), lawyer Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who is being increasingly described in the local media as the likely first woman Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has provided an answer that perhaps fits into her strategy for the coming bruising election campaign:
She said that Manning had taken the “coward’s way out” to avoid facing a no confidence motion, standing in her name against him, and which was scheduled for debate in the House of Representatives on Friday last (April 9).
The motion would have provided the opportunity to make use of her claimed ‘documentary evidence’ about more than alleged deep corruption involving the government and the once powerful Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDECOTT) as well as linkages between the PNM administration and a controversial church and its leader.

But Manning instead chose to advise President George Maxwell to dissolve the Parliament – from midnight on Thursday – that effectively pre-empted the no confidence motion from being debated in the House of Representatives the following day (Friday).

It may be tempting to accept the UNC leader’s political spin, on the assumption she would have succeeded in securing passage of the no confidence motion.

But she, herself, knows well enough that in that 41-member House of Representatives, the PNM held a solid 26-15 majority. Therefore, even if a few parliamentarians on the government’s benches had chosen to either abstain, or vote against the motion, Manning would easily have survive the challenge.

Therefore, the recurring question: Why did he rush the dissolution of parliament with at least two more years and seven months before a new general election is really due?

NARROW OPTIONS
Offering what is considered a plausible explanation, Reginald Dumas, Trinidad and Tobago’s former ambassador to Washington and High Commissioner to Barbados and the OECS sub-region, and currently a respected social commentator, contends, as he said to me at the weekend:
“It is not a case of fearing defeat over the no confidence motion. The harsh reality is that Prime Minister Manning had no option but to advise the President to dissolve parliament…
“It is evident that his troubles and trials are increasing and the longer he waits to call a new general election, his problems will only get worse.
“His political options have been considerably narrowed in the face of growing public discontent and conflicting signals within his own administration and party…”
To accept Dumas’ argument, it would also be reasonable to assume that in securing the dissolution of parliament,  the embattled Manning may well have succeeded in shifting some of the expanding pressures surrounding him and his administration.

For, as expected, with  the dissolution of parliament, much focus and related pressures would now be on Persad-Bissessar’s UNC as well as on the leader of the Congress of People’s (COP), Winston Dookeran, economist and former Governor of the Trinidad and Tobago Central Bank.
Their immediate challenge is to give substance to their stated recognition of the imperatives of “opposition unity” for a single party to battle the PNM for state power–at the coming snap election.

When the UNC, under the leadership of its founder and former Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday, and Dookeran’s COP contested the November 2007 general election in a three-way battle against the PNM, they had together polled 43,653 more popular votes than the incumbent.

The PNM had retained power for its current third term with 299,813 votes for its 26 parliamentary seats, but with less than 50 percent of the total votes–approximately 46 percent to be precise.

While the then fledgling COP had secured an impressive 148,041 votes (almost 23 percent of the ballots cast), it failed to gain a single seat under the prevailing first-past-the-post electoral system.

The UNC, on the other hand, obtained its 15 seats with 194,425 votes, or approximately 30 percent of total valid ballots

OPPOSITION UNITY
In the circumstances, given the multiple challenges facing his government over rising allegations of public corruption, poor fiscal  management; fears over diminishing energy resources -lifeblood of the economy – plus a persistent crime epidemic; depressing problems of pure water supply and levels of unemployment and poverty, Prime Minister Manning perhaps figured a snap poll could place his opponents on the defensive.

If they fail to evolve, in the shortest possible time, a unity front based on principles with strong public appeal, rather than engage in expedient leadership maneuverings, then the UNC and COP could well prove Manning to be quite politically astute and expose themselves to ridicule as playing games in the face of seemingly wide national discontent with cries of “time for change”.

It should also be noted that while Manning may yet encounter some difficulties in the screening of potential PNM candidates for the coming poll (rejecting, for example the nomination for Diego Martin West of incumbent Keith Rowley, a dismissed former cabinet minister) the UNC’s screening process may face an even more troubling situation.
This would include what to do about ex-leader Panday and three of the UNC parliamentarians who remained loyal to him up to the dissolution of parliament. They include Panday’s daughter, Mickela, a lawyer, and his former Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj.

Therefore, the multiple political bums on the road for the coming election, pose various problems for both the incumbent PNM and the yet to evolve united opposiion comprising what currently exist as the UNC and COP.