KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is switch­ing things up when it comes to the usu­al elec­tion time­line, hav­ing se­lect­ed all 41 prospec­tive can­di­dates to con­test the gen­er­al elec­tion be­fore the elec­tion date has even been an­nounced.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s suc­ces­sor, Stu­art Young, is re­main­ing mum about the elec­tion date but says the par­ty is ea­ger to an­nounce all can­di­dates on Sun­day at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain.

And while an­nounc­ing can­di­dates and es­sen­tial­ly cam­paign­ing be­fore a date is an­nounced may be unique to T&T, ac­cord­ing to po­lit­i­cal ob­servers, Young be­lieves he’s do­ing what’s best for the par­ty. He re­mind­ed the pop­u­la­tion that he still has sev­en months for the elec­tion bell to be rung.

When asked about an­nounc­ing can­di­dates be­fore the elec­tion date dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at Bal­isi­er House on Mon­day, Young said, “The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is do­ing what is nec­es­sary for the pop­u­la­tion to see 41 can­di­dates for a gen­er­al elec­tion that could be called any­time be­tween now and No­vem­ber of this year.”

While the PNM will be un­veil­ing its full slate of can­di­dates, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has on­ly named 11.

De­spite this, two po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors be­lieve be­ing the first po­lit­i­cal par­ty to name all its can­di­dates will not nec­es­sar­i­ly give the PNM an ad­van­tage at the polls.

An­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed yes­ter­day said win­ning the elec­tion may be about the par­ty which has the bet­ter pol­i­cy.

Mo­hammed said, “It comes down to strat­e­gy and it comes down to tac­tic. Who is to say that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar does not al­ready have an idea, she doesn’t have a full fledge list. It could very well be that she does.

“Last night (Mon­day), we saw many poli­cies rolled out as to what the in­ten­tion of the UNC is and what the in­ten­tion will be if they get in­to of­fice. And last night she fo­cused sole­ly on pol­i­cy, which for me was a good strat­e­gy,” he said.

“On the flip­side, you have Mr Young say­ing they have a full slate of can­di­dates, agreed. But, do we know what Mr Young’s po­si­tion is as it per­tains to where he stands on dif­fer­ent so­ci­o­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic po­si­tions for the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go? We don’t.

“He has the po­ten­tial to be­come the Ka­mala Har­ris of Trinidad and To­ba­go...How he de­tach­es him­self from Kei­th Row­ley, I think, is his biggest chal­lenge.”

Asked if there are any risks in hav­ing can­di­dates out cam­paign­ing for long be­fore the elec­tion is called, Mo­hammed said Young will have to fo­cus on beat­ing the ground to try to win the vot­ers.

Econ­o­mist Dr Vanus James’ is con­vinced the PNM’s chal­lenge is its lead­er­ship.

He said, “You need to set­tle the mat­ter of the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. In any case, let me make the ob­ser­va­tion that if they don’t set­tle that mat­ter, then they not go­ing to win the elec­tion. The pop­u­la­tion will see a lot of con­fu­sion com­ing ahead.

“For them to have any chance in the next elec­tion, they’re go­ing to have to ex­plain why things didn’t work well in the last 10 years and where the coun­try has to go from there.”

Asked about the typ­i­cal time­line be­tween a par­ty an­nounc­ing their can­di­dates and then call­ing the elec­tion date, James said there is no ide­al time to call the elec­tion.

In his view, the best way is to have a set elec­tion date, some­thing he’s been call­ing for as part of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.