Gail Alexan­der

Two and a half years af­ter the last gen­er­al elec­tion called by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, T&T heads out to its 20th elec­tion to­day–this time in his­toric cir­cum­stances. And once again, at­ten­tion will be fo­cused on sev­er­al mar­gin­al seats, ex­pect­ed to be the key in tonight's elec­tion out­come. The coun­try's 1.04 mil­lion elec­tors–lat­est fig­ure from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC)–will be vot­ing from 6 am to 6 pm, across a to­tal of 2,156 polling sta­tions through­out T&T. The elec­torate stood at a to­tal of 990,467 for the 2007 polls. EBC's re­vised list of elec­tors to­talled 1,040,011, the com­mis­sion con­firmed. The sup­ple­men­tal list com­prised 463 ad­di­tions, of which there were 346 dele­tions, EBC fur­ther con­firmed. EBC's chief elec­tions of­fi­cer Howard Cayenne yes­ter­day con­firmed that the fi­nal re­vised list stands at a to­tal 1,040,128 vot­ers.

To­day's ex­er­cise is ex­pect­ed to be a straight fight be­tween the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and com­bined op­po­si­tion forces, com­pris­ing five groups head­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). The op­po­si­tion forces had been frag­ment­ed in the 2007 elec­tion, re­sult­ing in split votes then. Head­ing the cur­rent com­bined op­po­si­tion group­ing, UNC leader of four months, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, will be seek­ing to be­come T&T's first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter. PNM leader Man­ning, whose par­ty is seek­ing re-elec­tion, has been a three-term in­cum­bent leader dur­ing his 39-year po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. All eyes in the two way-fight will be trained on sev­er­al mar­gin­al seats tonight. These in­clude San Juan/Barataria, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, Moru­ga/Table­land, Pointe-a-Pierre, To­ba­go East, San Fer­nan­do West and Lopinot/Bon Air West.

The lead­ers...

Man­ning has led the PNM since1987, af­ter the par­ty's de­feat at the hands of the NAR in 1986. As Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing 1991 to 1995, Man­ning called elec­tions ear­ly be­fore that term's end. In the 2001 elec­tion, he was ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter again and con­tin­ued serv­ing af­ter the PNM re­tained pow­er in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion. Af­ter putting his par­ty on elec­tion foot­ing last Oc­to­ber–two years in­to the new term–Man­ning dis­solved the Par­lia­ment on April 8, and sub­se­quent­ly set elec­tions for to­day's date. Af­ter an­nounc­ing the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion date on Sep­tem­ber 2007, Man­ning had hint­ed that when he re­tired, he would pre­fer to do so un­de­feat­ed. At that time in 2007, Man­ning had said if that elec­tion did not go as the PNM ex­pect­ed, he would "take his jha­gi bun­dle and leave, un­like some oth­ers." (sic)

The PNM which won a 26-seat ma­jor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment in 2007, is con­test­ing all 41 seats in T&T in to­day's poll. Per­sad- Bisses­sar, 58, be­came the coun­try's first fe­male At­tor­ney Gen­er­al un­der the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion of 1995-200. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so the coun­try's first Op­po­si­tion Leader. She served first in an in­ter­im ca­pac­i­ty in 2006, hold­ing for then Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day. In Feb­ru­ary, she was ap­point­ed on a per­ma­nent ba­sis, a month af­ter she was elect­ed UNC leader, re­plac­ing par­ty founder Pan­day on Jan­u­ary 24. Pan­day, who is not a par­tic­i­pant in to­day's ex­er­cise, had con­test­ed Cou­va North in ten gen­er­al elec­tions up to 2007. He had said then that that would have been his last elec­tion. To­day's elec­tion comes ex­act­ly four months af­ter Per­sad Bisses­sar be­came UNC leader.

She be­gan ce­ment­ing uni­ty moves with Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Win­ston Dook­er­an in March. That arrange­ment even­tu­al­ly al­so in­volved the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) and the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP). The Op­po­si­tion UNC held 15 seats in the Par­lia­ment. The cur­rent part­ner­ship arrange­ment in­volves UNC con­test­ing 23 seats, the MSJ con­test­ing un­der the UNC ban­ner in two and the TOP, two seats in To­ba­go. The COP will con­test ten seats and the NJAC will al­so con­test four un­der the COP ban­ner.

99 can­di­dates con­test­ing

Ac­cord­ing to the EBC, a to­tal of 99 can­di­dates from five par­ties and three In­de­pen­dents will con­test to­day's poll. There were ini­tial­ly four in­de­pen­dents, one how­ev­er, –Neil Go­sine–with­drew, EBC con­firmed. Apart from the PNM's 41 can­di­dates and those from the com­bined Op­po­si­tion group­ing, al­so con­test­ing are 12 can­di­dates from the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV) par­ty, one from the T&T Na­tion­al Con­gress, and an­oth­er from the Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Or­gan­i­sa­tion. The PNM and UNC held their fi­nal ral­lies at Tacarigua and Aranguez, re­spec­tive­ly, last Sat­ur­day. Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning is ex­pect­ed to vote at Bel­mont Ju­nior Sec­ondary School this morn­ing. UNC's Per­sad-Bisses­sar will vote at 10 am at San Fran­cique Hin­du School. For­mer UNC leader Pan­day votes at Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School at 9 am. COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an will vote at 6.30 am at Tacarigua An­gli­can School.

UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er votes at 6 am at Five Rivers Ju­nior Sec­ondary School. Tents have been erect­ed at UNC's Rien­zi Com­plex , Cou­va, head­quar­ters since the week­end. Prepa­ra­tions were on­go­ing yes­ter­day at PNM's Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters for elec­tion night ac­tiv­i­ties. Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning is ex­pect­ed to be at his San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy of­fice in the ear­li­er part of tonight. PNM of­fi­cials said he would go to Bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain lat­er on. As par­ties com­plet­ed arrange­ments yes­ter­day, COP's Gan­ga Singh said all COP of­fi­cials and mem­bers would be in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cy of­fices pend­ing the re­sults, "and pos­si­bly Rien­zi Com­plex af­ter." Singh said the op­po­si­tion part­ners had a team of at­tor­neys on hand to­day to lend as­sis­tance wher­ev­er nec­es­sary, es­pe­cial­ly in the Tu­na­puna and San Fer­nan­do West seats.

"There will be a con­cen­trat­ed ap­proach with an at­tor­ney for each polling di­vi­sion par­tic­u­lar­ly in the mar­gin­al seats...The lawyers are work­ing for all the part­ners in the op­po­si­tion group­ing." UNC vice-chair­man Fuad Khan said UNC can­di­dates were al­so ex­pect­ed to be in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cy of­fices as re­sults be­gan ar­riv­ing. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's PR spokesman In­grid Ish­mael said Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be at her Pe­nal con­stituen­cy of­fice un­til her Siparia seat was de­clared and would then dri­ve to Rien­zi Com­plex for the rest of the re­sults. UNC's Khan said: "The po­lice are be­ing very co-op­er­a­tive in help­ing us and we have le­gal teams on hand al­so." PNM pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Jer­ry Narace said yes­ter­day: "Every­thing is on track and we are well pre­pared." The PNM won the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion with a to­tal of 299,813 votes. The UNC re­ceived 194,424 and the COP, 148,014. In to­day's elec­tion, vot­ers will be spread over T&T's 1,472 polling di­vi­sions. The EBC has over 12,000 elec­tion of­fi­cers on du­ty.