Tomorrow is D-Day. The die is cast, as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar described his point of no return, on who will win the 2025 general election and lead us into the difficult years that await us.
A lot has been said about the importance of the floating voter and who will support the new parties tomorrow, but by now most people's minds have been made up. It has not been easy to decipher fact from fiction but the once-undecided are probably the voters who have listened closely to what the various new contenders for their vote have argued and decided which policies resonated most or promises seemed most realisable or dishonest.
They are the ones who perhaps feel that returning the PNM, which has had a fair time in power, is too deja-vu, or just the opposite. They might have come instead to think that the PNM is the only party with the necessary experience for the job at this juncture, judging from what the opposing candidates have laid out while out on the hustings. After all the campaigning, the UNC might not have convinced them, or vice-versa. The party is presenting a slate of many new faces in the world of politics. The once-undecided might think the time is not right for that, or they might prefer that the UNC leader is an old hand and believe she is able to take on the leadership of TT yet again, notwithstanding the comparative lack of experience in the party's top ranks.
The point is that these floaters are very important in tomorrow's election in the marginals and elsewhere, and the politicians have recognised it. With the increased number of new and possibly non-party-pri voters being apparently higher than normal and the rise of credible new parties - although still in their infancy and, strictly speaking, as yet unviable in government, especially in a tenuous coalition - we could be looking at a radically different political scenario emerging. There is an air of irascibility apparent in the schisms in the PNM and UNC, although papered over in both, which will probably vent itself when one of them fails to secure a majority.
The politicians are deeply aware that the stakes are high. The play for the vote of the party-faithfuls and the undecided has been hard work, as a result. I found myself feeling real admiration for all the candidates who over the last few weeks have been on the exhausting campaign trail, and for the party members who hosted and promoted the umpteen meetings and walkabouts. I am not convinced that politicians enter the ring just to get rich and steal from the public purse, although some do intend to access power for their own narrow interest. I believe that a sense of wanting to make things better is a motivating force for the majority. Undoubtedly, once in the system they discover limits to what they can achieve, eg, their own emotional or intellectual unpreparedness, having to toe the party line, the entrenchment of the unreformed public service and mindset of many public servants, or even corruption in the ranks.
It must be a compromise that they have to arrive at, which is
