Spokespersons for the UNC denigrated minor parties contending they don’t have much political support but make big demands and or seek ‘outsized influence’ in a proposed alliance and or accommodation. Evaluating small parties in terms of numbers suggests the party leadership and its cheerleaders and partisan commentators have not grasped ‘ethnicised politics’ and will repeat past errors that led to electoral defeats. Unless one studies or reads ethnic politics in political science or political sociology or cultural anthropology, one can’t understand the significance of small parties in a racially bi-polarized society like Trinidad and Tobago. Only a ‘political nincompoop’ will dismiss minor parties in a country with two major ethnic parties. Small parties influence outcome of elections. Whichever major party, PNM and UNC, embraces the small parties will win the 2025 elections. If it is a straight PNM and UNC contest with the minor parties on their own, PNM will prevail. The wheel of electoral fortune is in favor of PNM as a majority of voters don’t view the UNC as electable. The PNM has been and will remain the dominant party in the foreseeable future unless the UNC changes — reform and rebuild itself. Repeated defeats from 2015 and another in 2025 under present leadership may well close the book on the future of UNC and its 35 years history.
The UNC leadership and cheerleaders are right that small parties have limited support, but the view is partisan driven. Minor parties don’t have much support or funding but whatever following they have is critical to a major party and was shown to make a difference in UNC victories or defeats going back to 1991. They did and will influence the outcome of elections. Every vote will become crucial in 2025. But the small parties influence is not just in bringing their small numerical support but their ‘diverse ethnic optics’ and ‘the symbolism’ of unity which makes a major party more attractive to a major party.
The smaller parties may not win a single seat, but can change the fortune of UNC and PNM as was obtained in previous elections. Aside from 2000, UNC did not win an election on its own and even then it ‘had absorbed’ minor parties and independent forces associated with ONR and NAR. The PNM lost government to a coalition in 1995.
No third-party candidate ( minor party) in independent T&T ever won a seat in a three way contest except in an accommodation as in 2010. When there was no accommodation, UNC (TT Alliance) lost as in 2007, 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2002.
The deck was and is stacked against third-party candidates to run and or to win. But smaller parties can do damage to a major party. They caused UNC to lose seats in 2001 and 2007. When the UNC failed to unite with or accommodate the small parties in 2002 and 2007, it lost seats. When the small parties agglomerated under COP and engaged in an accommodation with UNC in 2010, it won. When the accommodation fell apart in 2015, UNC lost. When the UNC failed to accommodate the smaller parties in 2020, it was defeated. And going it alone again in 2025, it will be resoundingly defeated. All poll findings are leading to that inevitable result.
The smaller parties representing disgruntled voters are going to play a vital role in deciding the next election. Small parties have a hold on vote banks or floating voters that won’t go to UNC or PNM unless they are part of an alliance and or accommodation. Thus, they are prized possessions with which to be allied. Without them, UNC can’t win. The UNC cannot win alone as so many elections showed. The PNM can win without an accommodation and that was shown in most elections. Whenever UNC entered into an alliance or agreement and or accommodation, it won. Clearly, UNC victory politics was and remains synonymous with coalition politics. UNC and its earlier incarnations were never strong enough to earn a parliamentary majority on its own. It relied on pre- and or post-election allies to form a governing coalition. Its lone victory in 2000 fell apart. Thus, it can’t be understood why UNC is not embracing smaller parties. They will help to consolidate opposition support for a victory.
UNC can win big by treating the minor parties with respect and encourage their agglomeration or lose the next election. There will be a paradigm shift in which the UNC will lose dominance in its base similar to the DLP in 1976 when defeated in 2025 if it goes into an election of a strategy of “winning alone or losing alone”. Defeat in 2025 will imperil the future of the party as its support base will dissipate making it almost impossible to win an election and leaving room for the rise of a new force to replace it in 2030 akin to how UNC replaced DLP.
The UNC needs to stop denigrating small parties and do a better job in speaking with and embracing minor parties. Multipolarity is UNC’s future. If UNC plays its card right, it will win.