Pollsters in developed countries

In light of the election results, NACTA head Vishnu Bisram said “I feel vindicated that the results have borne out what the NACTA poll predicted.” As they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  Yes, they got the numbers right (if you stand on one leg, cock your head, and squint you [...]

NACTA vindicated?

While most polls showed the race to be between the PNM and COP, one polling outfit, NACTA showed it to be a PNM-UNC A race, with only marginal support for COP. For this, NACTA was attacked by COP, and claims were made of links between Vishnu Bisram of NACTA and Ramesh Maharaj of the UNC [...]

Was there a plan?

I’m probably just a slave to tribalism and the cult of The Leader, but there’s a part of me that still believes that Bas must have had a plan, that there must be some reason (nefarious or otherwise) for his actions over the last couple years.  Why create a rump of a party?  Why drive [...]

Still 22%?

During the 1971 No-Vote campaign the PNM won all 36 seats and received about 22% of the eligible vote. That marks their core support – about 22% of the electorate. According to preliminary figures, the PNM received 236,420 votes out of an electorate of 990,352. In other words, 23.9% of the electorate. Update: Newer figures [...]

26-15-0

The PNM won the election, winning 26 of the 41 seats and 236,420 votes. The UNC A won 15 votes and received 103,247 votes. COP won no seats and received 119,007. About 56% of the electorate turned out. I estimated that the PNM received about 43% of the votes cast. We’re basically back to the [...]

Rationalising elections

I could say that the people didn’t act in their own best interests.  A UNC supporter could say that the COP supporter didn’t act strategically.  A PNM supporter could say…I don’t know, I suppose they could say “we win”. Supporting a third party is always a risk.  Trying to get an electoral system to do [...]

Defeat

Manning won re-election for the first time. Three-party elections don’t work in a two-party system. So what next? Five more years of PNM mismanagement, five more years of worsening crime. This really sucks. Update: I give up.  (My radio link went dead anyway). I’ll see what the final tally is in the morning.

results – PARTIAL

Place PNM UNC COP Arima     Arouca/Maloney     Barataria/San Juan 5516 4308 3133 Caroni Central       Caroni East 3864 8297 4235 Chaguanas East 6817 3367 3053 Chaguanas West 1499 11461 5104 Couva North 1631 2391 1499 Couva South 2764 3101 1724 Cumuto/Manzanilla 6944 7226 3079 D’Abadie/O’Meara       Diego Martin [...]

Results start trickling in…

As the first results start to trickle in, it looks bad. While there are just a handful of polling stations, it seems to be PNM or UNC first, COP second. But it’s consistently behind, and well behind. None of the results mean anything at the constituency-level, but there’s enough there to see a trend…not good [...]

Discussing the polls

As I mentioned earlier, I am suspicious of opinion polls with respect to Trinidadian elections. But I am even more suspicious of political commentators. One of the few exceptions is political scientist and columnist Hamid Ghany. The one problem is that he is too much of an academic – when asked about turnout he supplied [...]