The PNM is a master at playing democracy against itself. The party always presents itself - no matter what it does - as representing the will of the people of Trinidad & Tobago. In some ways this trust is justifiable; the PNM has won more general elections and been in power and lasted longer than any other party in the country.
But the playing field is far from even. The PNM has been guilty of gerrymandering and allowing voters to register - even where they are not citizens or don't live in the districts. At the moment the big thing about Venezuelans coming over here is opposed by the party mainly because it is perceived that most of the Venezuelan immigrants do not favour the PNM and are brown - not black. Of course, this was different when the PNM let a lot of people in from the small islands. The PNM also spies on citizens.
The PNM has also learned how to use the Government to shape and skim public opinion. One example: the Prime Minister's recent program on all three major networks at prime time "Conversations with the Prime Minister". They have learned how to carefully control the message which is always that the Government represents all but a tiny minority of the people - and the underlying question is whose side do you want to be on? The vast majority, or the troublemakers?
Media freedom has, until now, been carefully controlled by the PNM. The party has relentlessly squeezed the space for critical voices in the traditional media by getting business cronies to buy up independent media and not sharing and starving the few others of advertising revenue. A classic case in point is the recent shipwreck of that oil barge in Tobago. We still have had no explanation as to why reporting on this took so long - more than a week - to make the national news. Even now it has become a bit of a 'nine day wonder' and we still don't have the full story.
The 'canary in the coal mine' responsibility has fallen to social media which is not always exactly reliable - much to the detriment of our society. But the Government has completely failed to give any proper explanation and the traditional media has failed to "hold the Government's feet to the fire" in order that we, the citizenry, can know what happened in that case.
So? Should we just turn the page and get on with our lives?
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