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INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PORT OF SPAIN 001319 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM TD
SUBJECT: T&T'S PRE-ELECTION POLITICS WARMING UP 
 
REF: A. POS 01066, B. POS 00676, C. POS 000253, 
 
¶D. POS 01040 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY: A number of recent polls as well as statements by Prime 
Minister Patrick Manning indicate that Winston Dookeran and his 
newly-formed Congress of the People should be regarded as serious 
new actors on the country's political stage.  It now seems that the 
Prime Minister may have decided to hold the next election when it is 
constitutionally due, no later than January 2008.  He may be 
gambling that by then, his next budget, unlike this year's budget, 
will win over the electorate to his side; that the fortunes of the 
United National Congress and the prospects of the Congress of the 
People may be on a downhill trajectory; that the high crime and 
violence in the country may have abated; that he may win the 
environmental argument surrounding the proposed aluminum smelters; 
and that euphoria over a West Indies win at next year's Cricket 
World Cup may give him victory at the polls.  Whoever wins the 
election, T&T/US relations will remain friendly, although, as with 
every other issue, they will be fodder for political point-scoring 
during the campaign.  END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------- 
REALIGNMENT IN T&T POLITICS 
--------------------------- 
¶2.  Two recent opinion polls offer a clear indication that a 
tectonic shift may be underway in Trinidad and Tobago's domestic 
political landscape.  A third poll, however, continues to reflect 
the traditional ethnic division between the largely though not 
exclusively Afro-Trinidadian People's National Movement (PNM), which 
has been in government since 2001 and the largely though not 
exclusively Indo-Trinidadian United National Congress (UNC), which 
has been in opposition since 2001.  This sharply-defined duality in 
T&T's political lineup was disturbed on September 10 when former UNC 
Political Leader Winston Dookeran and a number of other defectors 
from the UNC leadership formed the Congress of the People (COP). 
(Ref A). 
 
¶3.  Dookeran told his September 10 audience that, in establishing 
the COP, his aim was to provide the voters with a detribalized 
alternative, a party not based on ethnic divisions but one which 
would embrace all creeds and races, a party whose mantra would be 
"build consensus" and whose operating style would be people centered 
rather than power centered. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
DOOKERAN: SERIOUS ACTOR ON THE POLITICAL STAGE 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶4.  Like any new kid on the block, the COP drew considerable 
immediate attention and not a little enthusiasm.  In a September 13 
to 16 poll conducted by the respected University of the West Indies 
(UWI)/Ansa McAl Psychological Research Center, three days after the 
COP came into being, 37% of the respondents said they would support 
Winston Dookeran for Prime Minister, if a general election were 
called immediately; 19% said they would support current Prime 
Minister Patrick Manning of the PNM; while 11% said they would vote 
for Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the UNC parliamentary opposition leader 
personally chosen for that position by Basdeo Panday, the party's 
iconic spiritual leader, following his April conviction under the 
Integrity in Public Life Act. 
 
¶5.  It now appears that this initial burst of pro-Dookeran voter 
sentiment was just that, an initial burst.  By the time an identical 
UWI/Ansa McAl follow-up survey was conducted on October 11 to 14, 
Dookeran had slipped dramatically into second place, with only 20% 
of the survey respondents saying they would vote for him as Prime 
Minister, in case of an immediate election, while Manning rose to 
first place, garnering 23% of the respondents.  Persad-Bissessar 
remained in third place with an even lower respondent tally of 9%. 
It is important to note, however, that, in the October follow-up 
poll, by far the largest segment of respondents, 39%, represented 
the combined total of those who would vote for "none of the above" 
(19%) and those who were simply "undecided" (20%). 
 
¶6.  A third poll, whose results were reported in the press on 
October 31, was conducted by the North American Caribbean Teachers 
Association (NACTA) and its findings are substantially different. 
According to the NACTA poll, the ruling PNM was favored by 44% of 
respondents, which would give it 31 out of the 41 House of 
Representatives seats to be contested at the next election; the UNC 
was favored by 29% of respondents; while the COP ranked third with a 
tally of 12%, a performance which was nevertheless considered 
impressive for such a young party.  Oddly enough, the same poll 
reported 61% of respondents as disenchanted with the PNM's current 
performance in office. 
 
¶7.  In any case, Dookeran's seriousness as a player in the political 
arena is indicated not only by these poll results.  Patrick 
Manning's own nervousness over the COP's apparent surge of 
popularity became evident during the PNM's annual convention on 
October 15.  In a somewhat unseemly diatribe before party delegates, 
 
PORT OF SP 00001319  002 OF 002 
 
 
he was reduced to calling Panday "that jail bird" and nicknaming 
Dookeran "Mr. Duck and Run".  Although high-schoolish campaign-speak 
of this sort may be common currency in T&T's political culture, what 
Manning did next verged on illegality.  Without naming names, 
Manning charged that two of Dookeran's COP cohorts had "dirty 
hands", and warned Dookeran that the long arm of the law would "soon 
snatch" them. 
 
----------------------------------- 
SO WHEN WILL THE ELCTION TAKE PLACE 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  According to the T&T Constitution, the date of the next general 
election will be set at the Prime Minister's discretion, but must in 
no case be set any later than January 2008.  At the height of the 
UNC's disarray, from February through August, (Ref B & C), most 
commentators believed Manning could safely delay calling the 
election until the fall of 2007, since by then, the UNC might 
disintegrate completely. In any case, since Manning's experience 
with calling a snap election in 1995 turned out to be an electoral 
disaster, he was unlikely to risk repeating his past mistake. 
 
¶9.  When Winston Dookeran officially defected from the UNC and the 
first UWI/Ansa McAl poll showed that the COP's popularity had 
overtaken that of the UNC, some commentators began to wonder if a 
snap election might, after all, be on the cards.  Manning himself 
did not discourage such speculation, teasing the party faithful and 
the media at the PNM convention by saying: "the next election could 
take place tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or next year". 
 
¶10.  However, as the weeks have passed since the PNM convention, it 
has become increasingly clear that, for a variety of possible 
reasons, Manning may actually be in no hurry to call an election. 
One reason may be that the budget he presented to parliament on 
October 4 failed to give him a boost in the polls; a fall 2007 
election would give him one more budget opportunity to sway the 
electorate in his favor. 
 
¶11.  Two other reasons may have to do with the parties Manning will 
face at the polls: for one thing, it may be too early to write off 
the UNC.  If Panday's appeal of his conviction succeeds, the mood 
and fortunes of the entire Indo-Trinidadian community may revive 
dramatically.  In addition, it may be that, as the UWI/Ansa McAl 
polls suggest, and the NACTA poll confirms even more strongly, the 
apparent threat initially posed by Winston Dookeran's formation of 
the COP seems to have receded somewhat. In part, this may be due to 
an embarrassing mix up during the important budget debate in 
parliament when Dookeran was absent from the chamber precisely at 
the moment he was expected to present the COP's response to the 
government's proposed budget. 
 
¶12.  A fourth reason may be that a number of issues continue to grab 
the headlines and to cause unhappiness among various segments of the 
population, whose eventual outcome is yet unknown.  These include 
the persistent high crime and violence plaguing the country, the 
environmental controversy surrounding the proposed construction of 
two, possibly three, aluminum smelters, the repeated incidents of 
incompetence in the delivery of health care services in public 
hospitals, and the opposition to the draft new constitution 
commissioned by Patrick Manning, which would give overwhelming 
powers to an executive president elected by parliament rather than 
directly by the people.  And a fifth and final reason, not at all to 
be sneered at, may well be that Manning would like to postpone the 
election till after the Cricket World Cup Tournament of March/April 
2007 because, who knows, the West Indian team may actually win the 
cup and put the electorate in a frame of mind receptive to the 
reelection of the PNM. 
 
¶13.  COMMENT: Although election fever is clearly in the air, there 
are currently too many unanswered questions and too many issues on 
the public agenda which have not yet sufficiently crystallized to 
enable us to make any intelligent predictions.  Patrick Manning may 
have gambled against a snap election, in the hope of a brighter 
political environment a year from now.  All we can do is wait and 
see if he gambled right.  In any case, whoever wins the election, 
T&T/US relations will remain friendly, although, as with every other 
issue, they will be fodder for political point-scoring during the 
campaign.  This was already evident when the UNC blasted the Prime 
Minister's September 5 criticism of US neglect of the Caribbean 
region (Ref D), claiming he had placed T&T's national security in 
jeopardy.  END COMMENT. 
 
AUSTIN