THIS. IS. ELECTIONS!

So we have a date. The country took a breath and everyone started running around like headless chickens trying to get registered, and checking lists and so on. DeepThought has been telling you about voting for the last few weeks and should you want to read it you can read about "Why you should Vote," "Why the Numbers Tell you to vote," and "How to get registered." As of today, the EBC is in full registration mode only 5 more days to get on that golden list. So before I start thinking about the events of the last week I just want to say a few key things.

1. That I will try to update this page everyday with thoughts, it will be difficult as the shits going to be flying fast and furious for the next 40 days.
2. I am hoping to start posting the lists of candidates hopefully by the end of next week, as the PNM has already nearly finished it nominations, I'm just waiting on UNCOP/TOP to solidify their agreement and get the candidates out the door.
3. I will try to concentrate on the marginals and see what the feeling is on the ground.
4. No I won't tell you what constituency I am in, DeepThought has to have his own privacy!
5. and No. DeepThought will NOT tell you what he's going to do in the voting booth, BUT I think you already know!

So onto this week in review. Well we'll start with Friday. May 24th is the day of election. No fanfare, no trumpeting from the pulpit by the PM Pastor, he simply called up his partner Max and after all the bullshit talk about free tickets to this fete and who was at the other fete, he conversationally said "May 24th breds" and the notaries rushed to the one fax machine in the new PM's office, and started faxing to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised which radio station got it first, that would be Citadel Radio, run by our very own PNM-ite Louis LeeSing. Good for him, he got a sccop. So now the opposition has a chance to do what they couldn't do in 2007.

Meanwhile the PM continued his screening and Wednesday and Thursday were not free from Bobol. In fact Monday and Tuesday had even MORE bobol. The bobol for the PNM started on the weekend when Penelope Beckles was asked to take a "diplomatic posting" and car named Laurel, oooppss I meant a GIRL (for she is a VERY young girl) CALLED Laurel Lezema-Leesing (see a connection?) was put in Penelope's place. The Arima PNM-ites placarded late into the night shouting "No Penelope, NO VOTE!" Hmmm sounds familiar doesn't it? (excuse the language, I couldn't find the newspaper article) So the PNM-ites love to do the same things over and over. They placarded for Ken but the voted in that idiot Amery Brown, when they "claimed" they would vote for the COP. Hmmm What were the final results in that constiuency I wonder. Here check it yourself Amery Brown 9,301 votes. Not bad for the people who said they'd vote COP. (BTW the Vasant Barath people on the UNC side were saying the same thing. . . Trini's so predictable!)

So that leads us to the biggest bobol yet. Mr Keith "Rotweiler" Rowley. His seat is the ONLY seat I will consider a safe right now. The PNM knows it. The PM, KNOWS that he cannot lose Rowley this time around. See how politics makes strange bedfellows? Keith's nomination was secured and his crowd was just as big as Penelope. So how is this going to work? How is Keith going to go on a platform and extoll the virtues of his party, prepare speeches on PNM policy that has been proven bad for the country AND push the election of his Political Leader back in as PM. My thoughts are that Rowley can say ANYTHING at this point, even say vote for the COP, they can't stop him. So we'll just have to see what tricks he's going to turn on the hustings. We'll have to watch Mr Rowley over the next 40 days.

Now onto the Opposition. They've had the headlines for most of the week. Accommodation this and meeting that and "72 hour deadline" this. In the end what seems to have occurred is that Jack Warner has laid down the law. "Look we have 15 safe seats, you can give us MAYBE 4 more. You have nothing to bargain with. BUT we don't want you running off to your supporters and turning them away OR splitting the vote again. So here wha Dooks, you can run in St Augustine if you want, and other than San Juan/Barataria and our 15 seats and Tobago, you run anywhere you like." That leaves Tunapuna and the rest of the marginals for the COP to fight. Is this a good strategy? I will reserve comment on this until the analysts have sounded off some more as the election starts to get into full swing.

What I do know is that in certain PNM held seats if the voter turn out increases and enough people vote against the PNM, we could have a repeat of 1986. But we shall have to wait and see.

Kamla's speech on Friday night waffled some more and kept imploring people to vote out the PNM, but with no clear idea WHAT they plan to do when in Government, its seems that the only person to save Kamla and the UNC from itself is the logistics and policy making of the COP and THEIR track record hasn't been good at that either. How do you provide an alternative to something so solid as "Vision 2020?" while the "back to Basics" idea sounds nice, it DOES sound like a lot of hard work, and let's face it, Trini's lazy, they would rather someone TELL them that by 2020 they will be developed than someone tell them "You have to WORK to get 2020 status." So we shall see.

I am still formulating my last part to my "Manifesto for We." post on "culture" Stay tuned for that.