The minority parties are: Team Unity, led by former high profile Attorney General, Ramesh Maharaj, and Citizens Alliance of former Finance Minister of a previous People's National Movement administration -- Wendell Mottley.

Current thinking is that although neither is expected to win, separately, any of the 36 constituencies, they pose a risk for an outright victory for either the People's National Movement of Patrick Manning and Basdeo Panday's United National Congress.

Mottley's Alliance could split crucial support for the PNM and Maharaj's Team Unity for the UNC in the five marginal constituencies on which both of the dominant challengers for power are counting to deliver at least a 19-17 parliamentary victory.

Team Unity, formed within a few months of the last December 10, 2001 general election, had failed to win any of the 30 constituencies contested for the 36-member House of Representatives that resulted in a hung parliament.

Very few deposits were saved, but it polled 14,165 or 2.53 per cent of some 560,666 valid votes cast of an electoral roll of approximately 947,689.

It has, nevertheless, managed to maintain visibility, largely through frequent media interventions by Maharaj, marches and a court action for Manning to fix an election date.

He had spearheaded an anti-corruption fight while in the cabinet of then Prime Minister Panday, eventually culminating in a second election in a year at which both the PNM of incumbent Prime Minister Manning, and Panday's UNC secured 18 seats each.

TALKING ALLIANCES
The Citizens Alliance is of even more recent formation with its leader's eyes on new election that he knew was inevitable before the end of next month as the government would have had no legal authority to engage in financial expenditure by then.

Mottley, who has been pitching his appeal across the racial frontiers of predominant Indian and African support for the UNC and PNM respectively, would need a significant shift of traditional middle-class votes for his Alliance to make any impact.

There have been meetings between the Alliance and the National Alliance of Reconstruction (NAR), originally formed and led by current President ANR Robinson in a one-term government, established in 1986.

However, NAR had become so miniaturised by 2001 that it was compelled to contest merely the two seats in Tobago that had been the bedrock of its traditional support.

Tobago's two seats for the NAR had helped in the formation of the first UNC-led administration with Panday as Prime Minister, guaranteeing the government a 19-17 majority at the 1995 general election.

For the 2000 election, the NAR, no longer led by Robinson, lost one of the two Tobago seats to the PNM. But Panday's UNC had by then consolidated and even marginally expanded its support base to win an outright 19-17 victory.

That marked a stunning upset in the history of electoral politics in the twin-island state, long regarded as "PNM country". Until, that is, Robinson's famous "one love" but short-lived NAR --which had benefitted largely from Panday's support base in Trinidad -- replaced the PNM in government in 1986.

When the December 2001 snap election came, however, Tobago delivered both of its two constituencies to Manning's PNM to give him an equal number of seats to Panday's UNC.

SIGNIFICANT FACTORS
One of the more significant factors of that election, apart from the precedent it created since the dawn of adult suffrage multi-party parliamentary politics, was that the PNM, for the first time, failed to win either more seats in Trinidad than its primary challenger for power, the UNC.

Secondly, it came second in overall popular support with the UNC securing its 18 seats with some 19,33l more votes than the PNM which, for the 2000 general election, had won its 16 seats, including one in Tobago, with a plurality of some 31,457 votes.

The possibility of the Citizens Alliance, NAR and Team Unity reaching agreement for at least an electoral arrangement, if not a merger of convenience for the October 7 election, is not being ruled out.

If this fails, then there could be a likely four-way contest for the two Tobago seats involving the PNM, UNC, Team Unity and NAR.

The real challenge would, therefore, be for the PNM which must retain both Tobago seats if it hopes to form the next government. It is Tobago that could give it the winning edge in an expected close race amid speculations of another dead heat 18-18 seats result for the 36 constituencies.

Unless there is a dramatic upset -- which could be signalled by the coming official campaigning for the October 7 poll -- the small parties could do damage to the chances of both the UNC and PNM, especially by the votes they garner in the five marginal constituencies, four of which were retained by the UNC in 2001, having won all in the election a year earlier.

The loss was in Tunapuna in Trinidad's east-west corridor, a traditional PNM stronghold. Having narrowly regained Tunapuna from the UNC by a mere 276 plurality of votes, the PNM has been concentrating heavily since the last election to retain it.

It will be Tunapuna, and to a lesser extent that of St. Joseph, where the most intense battles will be fought in Trinidad between the PNM and the UNC, while the former desperately seeks to retain both of its Tobago seats.