ROWLEY, THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

 Keith Rowley is stuck in a hard place - between the devil and the deep blue sea. On the one hand he needs to call a general election now. The economic outlook for the country is only going to get worse and if he doesn't go the polls immediately his chances of winning the next elections are just about zero. His chances of winning now (and 'now' means now) are marginally enhanced by the leadership confusion in the Opposition UNC, but if he waits too long even that very, very slight boost will disappear.

On the other hand, he is faced with a highly disillusioned electorate. Recently, the PNM lost the local government elections and in Tobago, despite efforts to gerrymander the last House of Assembly results by increasing the number of seats from 12 to 15, the PNM managed to win only one seat! One wonders if there had been no gerrymandering if PNM would have been totally wiped out?!

But that's another story; what is relevant here is that based on present information Augustin Farley's party will win the two Tobago seats in the House of Representatives. And if the UNC manages to hold on to its 19 seats and the PNM doesn't lose any of its seats in Trinidad- a feat that looks most possible in the present climate - then, hey, presto! PNM loses and Farley becomes a kingmaker with his two seats! Of course, if PNM loses any seats in Trinidad then that will be it! They are out! And this last point looks increasingly possible.

So? Back to Keith Rowley's problem: he can't wait in the hope that things will get better  - they will not - and he will be taking a huge risk if he goes to the polls now. Thinking about it he will very likely wait. While there's life there's hope and he may very likely figure that things could change in his favour tomorrow. I know that I said in an earlier post that it looked as though Rowley was setting up to call an early election. But, hey, I'm entitled to change my mind and I have never pretended to have a crystal ball.  But trying to look at the situation as dispassionately as possible it does seem as though our erstwhile Prime Minister is caught between a rock and a hard place. What will he do? Your guess is as good as mine! There are other matters not in the public domain that , if they become public, could affect an election result, but it isn't likely that this will happen any time soon.