Gail Alexan­der

While po­lit­i­cal par­ties yes­ter­day were still await­ing of­fi­cial fi­nal re­sults for Mon­day's lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls, an Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of­fi­cial said vot­er turnout on Mon­day was 43.12 per cent of the Trinidad elec­torate.The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) won eight cor­po­ra­tions to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's (PP) five in Mon­day's elec­tions. Ch­agua­nas is still un­de­cid­ed. The PNM re­turned to con­trol ar­eas it pre­vi­ous­ly held in north and south while the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), the lead­ing par­ty in the PP, re­tained con­trol of its south/cen­tral "heart­land" ar­eas. The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) and Part­ner­ship mem­bers Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee failed to win any cor­po­ra­tions.EBC com­mu­ni­ca­tion of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day they could not give any of­fi­cial fig­ures on fi­nal re­sults. EBC CEO Ramesh Nanan did not an­swer calls all of yes­ter­day on fi­nal re­sults.

Ear­li­er in the week, EBC's pre­lim­i­nary es­ti­mate was that it was a low poll of about 26 per cent. But last evening an EBC of­fi­cial gave an up­dat­ed turnout fig­ure of 43.12 per cent or 447,080 of the Trinidad elec­torate.The EBC had said the Trinidad elec­torate up to Oc­to­ber 7 was 1,036,721. Yes­ter­day, of­fi­cials al­so said that up to Oc­to­ber 21, the fig­ure was 1,035,731.Last evening, PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said the PNM had not re­ceived any fi­nal re­sults ei­ther, though the par­ty had called EBC all day al­so.Ford said PNM had won re­counts in Moru­ga and San Juan East yes­ter­day.He said so far–with var­i­ous re­counts and the Point Fortin vot­ing re­do in hand–the es­ti­mate of PNM's to­tal votes was around 188,000. He said PNM was await­ing the fi­nal of­fi­cial fig­ure.

Ford said he be­lieved the al­lo­ca­tion of al­der­men which the EBC want­ed to com­plete by to­day was de­lay­ing an­nounce­ment of the of­fi­cial re­sults.Oth­er PNM sources pro­ject­ed that for the first time the PNM may be con­trol­ling all the may­ors–in the cor­po­ra­tions of Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ari­ma and pos­si­bly Ch­agua­nas if PNM suc­ceeds in con­trol­ling that cor­po­ra­tion where there is dead­lock with the UNC 3/3 and the ILP hold­ing two seats. PNM is putting up a may­or and deputy may­or there.UNC deputy leader Su­ruj Ram­bachan at 6 pm said the UNC had not re­ceived any of­fi­cial to­tal re­sults from the EBC yet and could not give an es­ti­mat­ed fig­ure.

Of­fi­cial re­sults­from EBC to­day

On Wednes­day, Ram­bachan had said the vot­er turnout was about 45 per cent in cor­po­ra­tions the UNC won and a lot of the seats UNC lost was due to the split caused by ILP in Cu­mu­to and Fyz­abad where UNC lost one area by 20 votes. He'd al­so said the two ILP seats in Ch­agua­nas were won by 200 votes "over­all prov­ing ILP put elec­tion suc­cess in the PNM's hands." ILP's Sunil Ramjits­ingh said at 5.30 pm yes­ter­day the EBC had not giv­en the ILP any fi­nal fig­ures yet and the par­ty on­ly had an es­ti­mat­ed pre­lim­i­nary fig­ure of about 63,000 or so. He said this was pend­ing re­sults from one area which he felt might add a "cou­ple thou­sand." But he was un­sure of the fi­nal tal­ly.Mean­while, CNC3 News re­port­ed last night that pre­lim­i­nary re­sults in­di­cat­ed that 448,022 peo­ple turned out to vote in Mon­day's elec­tions.The tele­vi­sion sta­tion, part of Guardian Me­dia Ltd, re­port­ed that more than 74,000 peo­ple vot­ed in the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Cor­po­ra­tion, more than 67,000 vot­ed in Cou­va/ Tabaquite/Tal­paro with the to­tal in San Juan Laven­tille near to 46,000.It is es­ti­mat­ed that 12,800 vot­ed Port-of-Spain, 12,300 in Ari­ma and 6,927 in Point Fortin.The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion is due to give the of­fi­cial re­sults to­day.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment turnout 2010 –386,830 vot­ers out of 998,787

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment turnout 2013–447,080 out of 1,036,721

EBC re­sults for PNM in 2010 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment poll–128,590 votes

EBC fig­ures for UNC in 2010–197,843 votes

EBC re­sults for COP in 2010 –57,337 votes.