When the Par­lia­ment opened on June 18, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sur­prised the na­tion with the an­nounce­ment of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions on Ju­ly 26. The an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Patrick Man­ning PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had de­ferred the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due lo­cal elec­tions four times un­der the pre­text of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form. The last lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion was in 2003. For sev­en years that fol­lowed, this re­form al­ways ap­peared on the hori­zon but nev­er ma­te­ri­alised.

Un­der the PNM the var­i­ous in­sti­tu­tions of lo­cal gov­ern­ment de­gen­er­at­ed mis­er­ably and the right of the cit­i­zen to par­tic­i­pate in democ­ra­cy was de­nied. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship promised on the cam­paign trail that democ­ra­cy would be re­turned to lo­cal gov­ern­ment with an elec­tion.�Many po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts thought this move was strate­gi­cal­ly as­tute as it caught the Op­po­si­tion PNM by sur­prise. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the PNM was al­so faced with its own in­ter­nal tur­moil.

Like the en­tire pop­u­la­tion, the PNM was in­deed sur­prised about the call­ing of a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion a mere five weeks af­ter a bruis­ing and bru­tal gen­er­al elec­tion. It ap­pears at this time that the Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment and com­po­nents were al­so sur­prised.

At the launch of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, the Part­ner­ship meet­ing was lack­lus­ter com­pared to the mas­sive en­thu­si­as­tic crowds of the gen­er­al elec­tion. The sup­port­ers of the UNC/ COP ap­peared to be in need of rest and per­haps suf­fer­ing from elec­tion fa­tigue.

The uni­ty among the "coali­tion" al­so ap­peared to be frag­ile as Win­ston Dook­er­an failed to show at the launch, opt­ing in­stead to at­tend an emer­gency COP meet­ing in Char­lieville to treat with the al­lo­ca­tion of seats be­tween the UNC and COP.

The dra­ma among the Part­ner­ship con­tin­ued to high­light a par­ty un­pre­pared and tired. The ini­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion of seats be­tween the UNC and COP saw the COP get­ting 32 seats which it was not sat­is­fied with.�The re­sult was a vir­tu­al re­volt in the COP camp that saw Dook­er­an be­ing shunt­ed aside for Manohar Ram­saran, a for­mer Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, to lead the ne­go­ti­at­ing team with the UNC. The new team brought an ad­di­tion­al eight seats to the COP.

The UNC saw many sub­mit­ting nom­i­na­tions from over 600 peo­ple and es­sen­tial­ly a mad scram­ble for the lim­it­ed num­ber of seats.

This at­mos­phere of con­fu­sion has re­sult­ed in a chaot­ic state in the se­lec­tion of can­di­dates.

Peo­ple who were con­tact­ed con­firm­ing that they were se­lect­ed for a par­tic­u­lar seat was on­ly to be dis­ap­point­ed, some­times mere hours lat­er, as they were in­formed that an­oth­er has been se­lect­ed.

There have been re­ports that peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly re­ceived let­ters from the par­ty au­tho­ris­ing them to fight a seat with all oth­er doc­u­ments, on­ly to be told sub­se­quent­ly that they should not both­er. This ill-man­nered and chaot­ic ap­proach re­sult­ed in some can­di­dates throw­ing their lot in the elec­toral ring as in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates. The con­fu­sion be­tween the UNC and COP saw ini­tial­ly what ap­peared to be a three-way race among the UNC, COP and PNM.�

This con­fu­sion al­so saw bungling by the COP in fail­ing to file prop­er doc­u­ments to fight a Diego Mar­tin seat and there­by los­ing it to the PNM, even be­fore the elec­tion day. �

Thank­ful­ly, fol­low­ing this there ap­peared to be a meet­ing of minds be­tween the UNC and COP. The in­ept and churl­ish ap­proach to the or­gan­i­sa­tion of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­toral cam­paign should re­sult in the rep­ri­mand of those par­ty of­fi­cials in both the UNC and COP. It is dif­fi­cult to com­pre­hend that af­ter com­ing out of such suc­cess­ful and a well man­aged gen­er­al elec­tion that the same par­ties are in­volved with the com­e­dy un­fold­ing in the lo­cal elec­tions. We put these ob­ser­va­tions pub­licly so as to sig­nal to the lead­ers the un­ease many have in the man­ner in which the lo­cal elec­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed. The PNM should not be tak­en for grant­ed.

The 2003 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion re­sult saw the PNM get­ting 83 seats while the UNC on­ly got 43 seats out of a to­tal 126. In 1999 the PNM won 67 seats while the UNC won 57 out of the 124. In 1996 the PNM won 63 seats while the UNC won 61. The his­tor­i­cal record shows that the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion is of­ten a close race and there­fore should not be tak­en for grant­ed. Lo­cal gov­ern­ment im­pacts sig­nif­i­cant­ly up­on the lives of cit­i­zens, per­haps in a more di­rect man­ner than its na­tion­al coun­ter­part at the par­lia­men­tary lev­el. Many feel that the on­ly way to make a dif­fer­ence in our so­ci­ety to­day is to start out by work­ing with lo­cal gov­ern­ment. With­out a lo­cal gov­ern­ment our so­ci­ety as a whole would not be able to func­tion prop­er­ly.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha