The problem with that analysis is the constituency. The floating voters, or the invisible 30 per cent or so of the electorate, are notorious for not voting because they don't care, are too comfortable to change the status quo or are too confused to make a decision.
Harnessing that vote has always been the magic formula to win an election. Both the PNM and the UNC failed to get it primarily because they felt comfortable with their historic supporters. In essence, politics remained for a long time a two party affair, in spite of the proliferation of political parties election after election.
I would not be so hasty to conclude that the 'Red Rally' was a turning point. Since the ONR introduced a new style of mass media politics in 1981 with music and hype, political meetings, especially political rallies, have become big fetes.
And it is common practice to bus people in. And it is not unknown to hand attendees a few dollars as pocket change and "for refreshments." The rum and roti politics is still there, although it has changed with the times.
At the risk of sounding offensive I want to suggest that crowds don't win elections; the vote is won on election day by an effective election machinery that the PNM has perfected since 1956. Ask Errol Mahabir about it.
I have seen that in Jamaica. In 1980 Michael Manley as the sitting prime minister staged the biggest rally that country had ever seen. More than 100,000 people jammed into Sam Sharpe square in Montego Bay to hear Manley announce his "third term day." The opposition Jamaica Labour Party was hard pressed to put together 30,000 in Kingston. But when the votes were counted Manley was sent to the opposition benches with just nine of the 60 seats in the Jamaican House of Representatives.
Even if you accept the COP count that there were 30,000 people in Woodford Square, it says nothing about winning an election. What it says is that people want to hear what the COP is saying. And that is what was really lacking last Sunday. And that's why I am not writing Manning's political epitaph just yet.
What was lacking last Sunday, and is still lacking, is a platform for change. Winston Dookeran's speech was full of rhetoric, nice sound bites, well crafted for the media by his spin professionals.
For example, he talked about a new politics with new faces. But the new faces were absent. The dominant faces were familiar ones, people like Selby Wilson, Gerry Yetming, Clive Pantin, Ganga Singh, Roy Augustus.
That's the old guard from a right-wing party that didn't excite the majority in 1981. It became a "one-love" partner with the ULF, DAC and Tapia in 1986 and the collective group won a landslide. Once it was divorced from the other partners it faded back into oblivion with even people like Winston himself, going down to defeat.
So if we're talking about a new generation of politicians these are not the faces we need to see. I am not convinced.
A day after the Red Rally Dookeran and the COP crowd moved to Fyzabad, invoked the memory of T.U.B. "Buzz" Butler and urged the trade union movement to join the bandwagon because other political leaders talk about what is to be done but are afraid to dirty their hands "in the affairs of the people."
Read related story: PNM, UNC conspiracy: Dookeran
The trouble is that Winston Dookeran and the people on his frontline are not known for dealing with the "affairs of the people", much less dirtying their hands in their affairs.
The COP is not even a party of the people. It is an organization formed by a group of people in a room who then thrust themselves on a people fed up with the opposition bickering, which was partly created by Dookeran himself with a strategy of communicating with party officials through letters that reached the media before being delivered to the persons to whom the correspondence was addressed. Such a modus operandi is counterproductive and doomed to failure.
Winston and his advisers helped create the disunity in the UNC because from the very beginning they didn't want to "dirty themselves" with the affairs of the UNC, which was formed by the people from the heartland of labour.
In spite of the spin and expensive mass media campaign I am not as optimistic as those who are already celebrating the COP's victory. I wish I could be.
Trinidad and Tobago deserves a new government; Patrick Manning and his PNM have done more than enough to get the boot.
But if I had a vote in Trinidad and Tobago the question I would be asking is why should I vote for the COP, PNM or the UNC Alliance.
That makes me a floating voter, the constituency that is supposedly going to carry Dookeran and the COP to Whitehall. In spite of the hype, Winston and the COP have not laid out a platform for change that tells me it is going to be anything but business as usual with a COP government.
It is traditional for parties to save the promises for the height of the campaign so there is still time for a lot of things to happen. But don't count on that floating and invisible voter based on the attendance at the Red Rally.
The reality is that in our first past the post system numbers count. The famous 10-vote formula is the greatest threat. Three votes for each opposition party and four for the PNM gives Manning the seat with only 40 per cent of the vote, making losers of the majority 60 per cent.
There is talent on both sides.
If only the opposition could put personalities aside and focus on the big picture, there is still a very good chance that Manning will have to hand over the keys to his new $148-million mansion.
Jai Parasram - 16 Sept. 07
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