It comes as no surprise the polls in Trinidad and Tobago are finding that the stocks are down for Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her nine-month-old People’s Partnership government.
According to the results from a NACTA poll released last week, Persad-Bissessar’s popularity has slipped following the debacle in the appointment of Reshmi Ramnarine as the head of the Strategic Services Agency. The poll has also found growing dissatisfaction with the PP’s performance and its ability to run the country.
Data from a second poll are pointing to the same finding. It was done by the Ansa Mcal Psychological Research Centre, University of the West Indies, and released earlier this week. This poll has found that Persad-Bissessar’s popularity continues to slip due to blunders by her government and its failure to deliver on some of the items in an action plan that helped sweep it into power last May. The poll also unearthed growing dissatisfaction with Persad-Bissessar’s handling of serious blunders that have affected her government.
However, even as the PM and her PP continue to settle into the role of government, and doing this with significant missteps and fumbling, it is doing so against the background of decades of misgoverning, mismanagement and misspending by the PNM. It is for this reason that NACTA also found that respondents to its poll did not want to see a return to the bad old days of PNM misrule.
It is thus a scenario of good news, bad news. While the polls reveal growing disenchantment with the government, at the same time it is also indicating that the PP’s hold on power is not threatened. The good news for the government is that despite the poll finding Persad-Bissessar’s ratings had slipped downwards, the figures are still above those for the PNM opposition leader, Keith Rowley.
The PP government needs to pay close attention to what the nation is saying through these polls. As nationals living abroad, we too are engaged in many ways with Trinidad and Tobago, particularly through investments and other financial input. Two of the main items which are of concern must get wholly into the PP’s focus in the months ahead. These are the worrying escalation of crime and restarting a stagnant economy. The continued failure in dealing with these two main troubling items is contributing to the frustration and disenchantment in a populace that so wholeheartedly voted for a refreshing change of government last May.
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It is astonishing, the revolutions that toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
The belief is that the Internet and its social networks facilitated the removal of both leaders. Facebook and Twitter were used to communicate and then disseminate the information that held the demonstrations together. Information flowed despite an attempt by the Egyptian government to shut down the electronic networks. The people’s voice, vox populi, could not be contained through militaristic might or autocratic curfews.
Egypt has undoubtedly set the standard. Order prevailed as thousands of protesters filled the streets and squares. On the surface the outpouring was leaderless. Yet order and good sense prevailed - flashes of violence were quickly contained. The demographics showed too that the protesters were urban, middle class and fairly young. They marched on the streets as families with children. They established temporary infrastructure such as a kindergarten. Protective groups were formed to provide neighbourhoods and historic buildings with security. Other ‘volunteers’ conducted searches to ensure no one brought weapons into the crowds.
In the end, the people stayed connected. Two presidents are now out of power through the concerted will of the people.
The question now is, has the political unrest that began in Tunisia ended in Egypt? If a revolution can spread and be sustained electronically, where next will its text messaging sprout?
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