Well, at the time of writing this post there are less than two weeks before the general election. The UNC continues to pull large crowds - bigger than the PNM's. If crowds or crowd size are an indication of poll strength then (unsurprisingly) the UNC will win hands down. But while there are a lot of people who are completely fed up with the PNM those people are not being persuaded to vote for the UNC - at least not yet! And this election will be based on the total number of seats won and not votes cast.
Part of the reluctance to vote for the UNC can be attributed to race. But this is only a small part of the whole picture - the biggest part can be laid squarely at the feet of the UNC leader. Many rabid UNC supporters will take umbrage at what is being said here. And it is true that a week is a long time in politics - a lot can change. But present performance on both sides of the political divide suggest (a) that there will be a low poll; (b) that the crowd size in the UNC meetings are from UNC supporters who are from 'safe' seats; and (c) that in a low poll in crucial 'swing' seats the PNM will win - even though the UNC will probably win the popular vote in the country.
My guess is that the PNM has probably given up at least one seat in Tobago, but that their polls are showing them with a small majority of the 39 seats in Trinidad. Win, lose or draw expect Tobago to play a large part in the next Government. Certainly, if the two Tobago seats are lost by the PNM, Tobago's importance will only increase as far as governance is concerned.
But what is noticeably missing, especially from the PNM, is what are they going to do to make our lives better. Unfortunately, while the UNC is making promises, nobody knows how they are going to pay for them - and that is a problem. The political and economic policies from both sides are essentially the same except that both sides are saying that " we (whoever 'we' are) can do it better!
And the truth is that by all that is normal the UNC should win a whopping majority. But things are not ever normal, are they?