A Surfeit of Information
The political parties, particularly the PNM and the UNC, have been spouting a tonload of information at us and, clearly, they hope thereby to convince us to vote for them and give them a majority in parliament. But how are we handling the information overload, and what does the overload say about PNM and UNC?
The overload has been coming in the form of political platforms, media ads and propaganda, house visits, constituency walkarounds, manifestoes, banners, posters, leaflets, and slogans; and its themes have been corruption, crime, terrorism, insecurity, quality of governance, and pledges and promises.
PNM have been swamping us with messages that they are the better party - one which has delivered on its 2001 promises; which will improve the lot of the vulnerable elderly and young; which will provide a variety of tax reliefs to promote far higher levels of saving; which will deliver new infrastructure for education and crime-fighting, thousands of houses, jobs and businesses, free medicine for the elderly, better health care, and integrity in government; which has moved on corruption, in particular establishing commissions of enquiry that have unearthed the most scandalous and reckless squandering and theft of state monies; and which has managed the economy so well that there is an increase in the reserves, inflation is down by 2%, unemployment is down by 0.8%, and there is a budget deficit of below 1%. In the process, they have been lampooning UNC as an untrustworthy bunch of thieves and crooks who have plundered the treasure for the personal gain of the hierarchy.
UNC have also been swamping us with the message that they are the better party, by proven performance and proven competence in governance. They too talk of how they have provided for the elderly and the young, of how they have improved education, employment and crime-fighting, and of how competently and responsibly they managed the economy in their six years in government. But they have been particularly focused on the PNM's alleged contribution to increased levels of crime and, in particular, on an 'unholy alliance' between the PNM and the Jamaat Al Muslimeen which holds unknown terrors for a citizenry already buffeted by 'a record number of murders…, kidnappings and robberies' and scared to leave their homes. In the process, they have been ridiculing the PNM as a bunch of incompetents and desperadoes.
I think voters have already taken a position on DPTT and CA, dismissing them as nuisance factors in a Trinidadian (if not a Tobagonian) polity where a two-party politics is establishing itself. But what do we do with this overload of information? Do we carefully and painstakingly sift and analyse it and reduce it to its general messages, and then favour /disfavour PNM and UNC based on our belief / disbelief in these messages? Or do we let the vast rain of information hit our consciousness in our routine social strides in the same way that other kinds of information do, appraising it uncritically in the context of established belief systems?
The information rain from the parties does not visibly drop the triad of race, ethnicity, and religion, and yet we know that most people will vote on those bases. So is it that PNM and UNC are making sure, by their focus on other things, they keep their ethnic cores, as well as hoping to induce conversions from the opposed core and the constituency of floating voters? Well, if that is so, will the general messages of corruption, crime, terrorism, insecurity, and quality of governance induce enough conversions, particularly in the marginal seats, to cause one of the parties to win a majority of seats?
Political science has not yet developed to the extent that allows us to know in a predictable way what constellation of conditions and forces would make peripheral voters favour one party or another. If the majority of floating voters (who have eliminated race, ethnicity and religion as discrimination factors) are convinced by the PNM noise on UNC corruption and on PNM ability to deliver on promises and pledges, the PNM will win the election. If they are convinced by the UNC noise on PNM incompetence and involvement in crime and terrorism as well as on UNC to keep good its promises and pledges, then the UNC will win the election.
Because we cannot know beforehand how the floating voters will do their assessment, and because the critical cores of PNM and UNC remain despite damning evidence of ear and eye, we will have to wait until the votes are counted after 6.00 p.m. tomorrow.
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