In business it is often said that a client’s complaint is a “gift” to the entrepreneur and it should be easy to understand why this is so. On the occasion that a customer takes the time to articulate a specific concern about a product or service, that person has actually done you a huge favour because they could as easily have walked away.
Although this is equally true in the world of politics, it is unfortunate that few political leaders understand the tremendous value of political complaints. By route of my profession, I have first-hand knowledge of this political challenge since polls are technically sophisticated “suggestion boxes” which politicians routinely dismiss.
There are some political jurisdictions, however, where the existence of local government marries with the ad hoc occurrence of by-elections to reveal a frank assessment of public sentiment, then it should be impossible for the politician to ignore.
Trinidad and Tobago is one such place and as such Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar can be said to be one of the luckiest politicians in the Caribbean today since she knows what she is facing in 2015 right now. Notwithstanding the advance notice, her political mountain seems akin to Mount Everest as reflected in her poor showing in not one but four “mini elections”. The first hint of trouble occurred in January when the United National Congress’ (UNC) Tobago coalition partner, the Tobago Organization of the People (TOP), was virtually obliterated by the Tobago People’s National Party (PNM), which has generally dominated politics there throughout the years.
The early national election on the mainland compromised the traditional synchronization of Trinidad’s national and Tobago’s local elections, and the fact that the TOP did relatively well in the nationals implied that the anti-PNM swing was manifesting itself in Tobago.
Political swings can be transitory and this is especially so in Trinidad and Tobago, which I have consistently maintained needs to be seen as “PNM country” in which the UNC – along with whatever allies it coops – negotiates its placement. This is not to say that a semi-permanent political space is impossible. It was therefore fortuitous that the Tobago election was held in 2013 since it was effectively a mid-term test of the extent to which the 2010 swing against the PNM was holding. Political pundits and indeed one internal CADRES poll suggested that the TOP was not doing well and the result of the election was therefore no huge surprise.
The reasons for this defeat were less obvious but the result was clearly an expression of dissatisfaction with the People’s Partnership (PP) government that was at the time “in-bed” with the TOP. The Prime Minister’s appearance on the scene in Tobago to emphasize their closeness did little to help.
With the lessons of the Tobago election behind them, the Persad-Bissessar government faced two by-elections, which one is inclined to think could have been avoided. One cannot deny that Persad-Bissessar took a principled position with respect to both MPs Herbert Volney and Jack Warner, as indeed one also respects the position that was taken with respect to fired ministers Mary King and Collin Partap.
The Prime Minister’s zero tolerance for “corruption” is not inherently a bad thing, but she needs to be aware of the political tightrope that she is walking. Hence her “principled stand” ultimately led to two by-elections, giving the public further opportunities to express their dissatisfaction with her government, and this they did.
Against this background, the outcome of the local elections (which preceded the most recent by-election) was not surprising and perhaps also not avoidable since the UNC has a natural disadvantage at this level. The local elections were not optional and while the Prime Minister introduced an element of proportional representation at the local level, this was insufficient to take the political sting out of her local election defeat. As such, the Prime Minister is now effectively staring down the barrel of a political gun which is set to go off in 2015, with her political confidence badly shaken by these defeats.
The logical question therefore would be if Persad-Bissessar understands the message in the defeats.
The simple message is one that the Stuart administration would also do well to understand. It appears as though Persad-Bissessar, like Stuart, interprets her election victory in absolute terms and fails to appreciate the extent to which both results were very tentative. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, Persad-Bissessar appears to think that “she” and the UNC won the 2010 election outright and has therefore not given sufficient political capital to her allies.
Certainly her numerical victory implied that she could go it alone, but if her advisers properly analyzed this victory, they should have advised her that the win was entirely grounded in the UNC’s alliances both within the party and with the COP and other partners.
• Peter W. Wickham is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).
