ScottyPedia: Rafflenomics

Truer words have never been spoken!

It is election season in sweet T&T and while I really don't like to discuss local politics here, something happened recently that I felt the compelling need to comment on. This urge came about because what I happened to be listening to made little or no real sense to me upon the first listening. Then when I decided to do the mathematics it made even less sense as a financial strategy.

Before I continue, I do not have any affiliation with any political party; I am just examining public statements and offering a sober and objective analysis on same. Nor should you perceive the analysis as an endorsement of one party over another. I'm trying to be as impartial as possible.

The People's Partnership Coalition. Comprises the United National Congress (UNC), Congress of the People (COP), Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) and the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ).

At the People's Partnership's Monday Night Forum (the ruling party's weekly public meetings that resemble a campaign meeting although election campaigns have not been officially launched as we have not even been offered an election date), the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bisessar, SC broached the topic of campaign finance. Declaring that she (note she said "she" and not the party) had no financiers, she told her adoring public that her party would be financing their political campaign via … a raffle.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bisessar, SC. She is also the political leader of the coalition's largest partner - the UNC.

This raffle, with a per-ticket cost of just $10, would provide players taking part with an opportunity to win:

1st prize - a brand new car

2nd prize - a full bedroom furniture suite

3rd prize - a fully furnished kitchen suite

No further details were given about the prizes to be offered.

While I applaud the PM's attempts at financial self-sufficiency for her party, the mathematics of such a venture just does not add up and here's why!

We have 41 constituencies here and I shall assume that plans are afoot to offer up candidates in each one. Every candidate who declares for a seat must pay down a deposit of $5000 for that privilege (a fee usually paid by the party he/she represents). This deposit is refundable to the candidate only if he/she polls more than one-eighth or 12.5% of the votes cast for the seat. So, for the UNC to properly register 41 candidates, they are going to need 41 x $5000 = $205000.

Selling raffle tickets at $10 a pop means that just to cover the nomination costs for their candidates, 20500 tickets have to be sold. Do you see the problems here as yet? Nope? Let me see if I can make things clearer …

Since the party has no financiers, those prizes cannot be donated by anyone outside of the party executive. This means the party will have to acquire these prizes on their own. A modest estimate of the cash value of the combined prizes would be around $180000. So, another 18000 tickets would have to be sold to recover the cost of the prizes.

Adding those two figures, we see that just to ensure real prizes for the raffle and to get the nominees on record, at least 38500 tickets will have to be sold. That is a daunting proposition indeed at the very start.

But wait, that can't be all the campaign costs involved? What about transportation, rental of venues, stage and audio-visual equipment, advertising, banners, flyers, promotional items and the like. These are items that have been known to run into several millions of dollars for any political party. Translating that to raffle tickets, literally hundreds of thousands of raffle tickets would have to be sold to adequately cover these kinds of costs.

According to statistics provided by the Elections and Boundaries Commission, the PP gathered over 432000 votes in the last general election. Just to fund the PP campaign, it would seem that they will need every single one of those supporters to purchase at least one raffle ticket. A raffle with nearly half a million tickets sold in T&T; does anyone realistically see that happening?

If you believe that bit of rafflenomics, I have some bridges to sell you ...

I hope that this goes to show that when you listen to campaign talk you should do it with some critical thinking cap firmly on. Otherwise you can whip yourselves into a frenzy over unsubstantiatable nonsense.

Rafflenomics is not the answer to questions over campaign financing; genuine campaign finance reform is!