PORT OF SPAIN (IPS) -- Observers from the
Commonwealth have arrived in this southern Caribbean country to monitor
the Dec. 11 polls amid complaints from the main opposition party that the
upcoming elections may be rigged.
Already there have been allegations of
irregularities in the electoral process. There have been police searches
at the homes of senior ruling party officials. And a government minister
has been dismissed amid ongoing investigations into alleged acts of corruption.
Both the police and the Electoral Boundaries
Commission (EBC) have refused to comment on claims by the opposition that
it had uncovered a plan by the ruling party to shift voters from safe constituencies
to the so-called five marginal seats.
The police have raided and searched the
homes and offices of a number of senior United National Congress (UNC)
members, including that of Communications and Works Minister Sadiq Baksh,
who is also the ruling party's campaign manager.
In addition, Foreign Affairs Minister Ralph
Maraj was questioned after he admitted on a television show that "over-enthusiastic"
party supporters who were part of the plan to pad the voters' list had
approached him.
In the midst of the allegations, the Jamaat
Al Muslimeen, a radical Muslim group that staged a bloody unsuccessful
coup in 1990, released audio recordings of telephone conversations linking
UNC party activists to the voter-padding scheme.
Prime Minister Basdeo Panday himself has
dismissed the allegations, agreeing with political scientist Dr. Hamid
Ghany that there had to be collusion between the EBC and the UNC for the
scheme to succeed.
The EBC, for its part, has pointed to its
own integrity even though newspaper reports indicate that it is "split
over how to handle the allegation."
The final voters list for the polls was
scheduled to be released Nov. 20.
But political analysts say the outcome
of the polls, which Panday has termed "the mother of all battles," is likely
to mirror the results of the 1995 elections when the two major political
parties won 17 seats each.
The historic tie was eventually split when
the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), with two seats, won in
neighboring Tobago and joined the UNC to provide the country with its first
Indo-Trinidadian head of government.
The election campaign so far has not featured
issues likely to affect the country's future socio-economic conditions
in a changing global environment, with many political analysts and newspaper
columnists agreeing that race is the factor that will determine the outcome
of the December polls.
Trinidad and Tobago is almost evenly divided
between the two major races here, with the Indo-Trinidadian favoring the
Indian-based UNC while the Afro-Trinidadian will likely vote in support
of the opposition PNM, which had ruled this country for 30 unbroken years
until 1986.
--Peter Richards