No Marginal Seats Expected

[latany]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.

[JPersad]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.
Not necessarily .But possible .
My only prediction is that the UNC is going to end up with less seats than they presently have .
If 70% of the electorate cast their vote , that will be in the COP favor .

[slayerdave]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.

No my friend the corpse are responsible, if the PNM wins 32 seats.

[cm103]

Doubt the COP go be responsible but it will be the death of the UNC if they lose seats. People ent stupid to Panday and he mamaguy anymore.

Well most people ent stupid to it. There still are the few that repeat everything the man say.

[JPersad]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.

No my friend the corpse are responsible, if the PNM wins 32 seats.
You are indeed pathetic .
If the UNC is that great (as you allude ) , then they will win the election , even if a hundred other parties are contesting , regardless!

[latany]

It is possible that the UNC can receive the second largest number of votes and still loose seats that they now hold. If the UNC membership alone vote in favour of their party it is not likely that they will win one seat. Some supporters have shifted their ethnic support to COP, but that does not put COP in a position to win more seats than the UNC.

[Dispatcher]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.

No my friend the corpse are responsible, if the PNM wins 32 seats.
You are indeed pathetic .
If the UNC is that great (as you allude ) , then they will win the election , even if a hundred other parties are contesting , regardless!

You can be the best thing since slice bread but the majority Trinidadians still voting along racial lines. No matter how good you are You cannot win a seat in the opposite side's heartland.

With COP on the scene (like ONR, NAR) they will get votes but mostly from the UNC base and the undecideds. They cannot win any seats though. History has proved it and there's nothing new now that will change that.

All they will succed in doing is handing over the marginals to the PNM thus reducing the opposition in parliament. Did NAR a party in government win any seat in Trinidad in 1991. No. All that scenario with 3 strong parties caused was PNM taking all the marginals.

In 1994 with no strong 3rd party in Trinidad, UNC pulled back those marginals resulting in the 17-17.

COP has pulled a sizeable voter base, but that will only benefit the PNM. No one else.

[emmannn]

People are talking about the COP as if they are a third party that was mae up of alliances that existed (the ONR) teh COP in just a year has made inroads into BOTH the PNM and UNC camps. Also they have spurred the interest of young people who are more politically aware. The attempt to pigeonhole the COP as a fallout party from the UNC is very myopic. They have a broader appeal than given credit for.
They will split votes but on both sides and I predict one of the highest voter turnout for this election and there is where the surprise will lie.

[JediKnight]

The electorate does not trust Bas, neither does the membership of his party. The UNC performance to date is responsible for the lead the PNM has. The PNM can easily win 32 seats.

No my friend the corpse are responsible, if the PNM wins 32 seats.

Yeah de COP is de problem. I currently support de COP. If the COP was not around and Panday continued to be the leader of the UNC, I would have remained with the PNM.

[latany]

slayer is right if he contends that UNC support is basic ethnic, and geographical location limits their national scope in this election. COP is also a receipient of this identical disgruntled ethnic support. If the UNC gets more than 10 seats they should consider themselves lucky.

[Parsifal]

People are talking about the COP as if they are a third party that was mae up of alliances that existed (the ONR) teh COP in just a year has made inroads into BOTH the PNM and UNC camps. Also they have spurred the interest of young people who are more politically aware. The attempt to pigeonhole the COP as a fallout party from the UNC is very myopic. They have a broader appeal than given credit for.
They will split votes but on both sides and I predict one of the highest voter turnout for this election and there is where the surprise will lie.

I beg to differ.

The latest NACTA poll is indicating a clear sloughing off of support from the UNC to the COP. The PNM percentages have not only held but is actually 3-5% higher than normal indicating that they are capturing more of the undecideds and swing voters.

Although this is not entirely empirical analysis, if you take the sum of the UNC and COP counts you get the UNC % of the vote cast in the 2002 election. While the PNM vote % is higher than what they received in 2002.

I think that the voter turnout is going to be down somewhat as more people become disenchanted with the whole prospect of voting for the UNC or the COP as they continue to sling mud at each other.

[Solachica]

You can be the best thing since slice bread but the majority Trinidadians still voting along racial lines. No matter how good you are You cannot win a seat in the opposite side's heartland.
I agree with this and have seen it many, many times before.