THE VOTER turnout of 54 per cent in the April 28 general election is the lowest on record since this country became a republic. It is the second worst ever since independence; only the 33 per cent of 1971, when there was a “no vote” campaign, was lower.

It might be easy to place the blame for this squarely on the PNM given that its support collapsed from 322,180 to 220,160. But UNC votes just held steady, with only a bounce from 309,654 to 334,874. There was no overwhelming tidal surge beneath the significant shift in seats.

This should worry all.

“The opposite of love,” said writer Elie Wiesel, “is not hate, it’s indifference.” The turnout is a message about not only political parties but also the health of our democracy. It suggests a level of apathy on a scale that seems generational and that risks becoming irreversible if not addressed. How could less people vote this week than in a pandemic?

The PNM must confront, in the constituency-by-constituency tallies, the extent to which its grassroots support did not turn out and the roles played by leadership and poll timing in this. But look closer and it is clear the party’s base has been sliding long before its more recent Balisier House shifts. Its tally in 2015 was 378,729 – a high-point. In the space of a decade, that has slipped.

There’s a lot of blame to go around. The gravitational force of incumbency is undeniable. Yet, a sense of deep disillusionment is something that should be examined, too.

A politics of mudslinging and acrimony, of personalities and not policies, of exchange and not genuine change – these are the things that may well be equally responsible for the failure of the turnout to substantially grow despite the frenetic amplification, through social media, of discourse.

Questions arise, too, about the electoral process. Is voting seen, for some, as a hassle? Are people just fed up? What is the demographic breakdown of those who do vote?

The EBC should have, long before now, been able to facilitate the generation of specific trending data given all at its disposal. But because electoral reform has lagged, we do not even permit modern practices like exit polls which could give insight. Yet again, election observers this week remarked on the lack of campaign finance reform – reform that could make more people have faith in politics.

Once apathy sets in, the rot is difficult to reverse.

“We may have found a cure for most evils, but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings,” said Albert Camus. Apathy for crime, apathy for others – add to the list apathy for democracy. We are treading dangerous waters.

The post Worryingly low turnout appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.