Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's shock­ing an­nounce­ment that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions will be held in the next 36 days caught sev­er­al mem­bers of her Cab­i­net off guard and even sur­prised some po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts. Some coun­cil­lors are ac­cus­ing re­cent­ly in­stalled Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma of mis­lead­ing them at a spe­cial­ly con­vened meet­ing at Crowne Plaza, Port-of-Spain two weeks ago. Coun­cil­lors from the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions are claim­ing that at the meet­ing they were in­formed by Shar­ma that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions would be held in Oc­to­ber. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, sources re­veal that Shar­ma was as­sured that im­prove­ment was go­ing to be made to the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Act No 21 of 1990. At­tempts to con­tact Shar­ma yes­ter­day proved fu­tile, but coun­cilors are call­ing on him to come clean and clear the air on the is­sue.

"We were all very much sur­prised be­cause we met with the min­is­ter less than two weeks ago and he told us to pre­pare for Oc­to­ber and now the Prime Min­is­ter drops a bomb­shell. Peo­ple need to know that the new min­is­ters can be trust­ed by their words. This clear­ly shows that di­a­logue is not hap­pen­ing some­where. "In that meet­ing which was at­tend­ed by both Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) coun­cilors, the min­is­ter as­sured that none of the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions was go­ing to be scrapped but in­stead...to im­prove the Act," the source said. The life of the coun­cil that was ex­tend­ed on three oc­ca­sions by the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­pires on Ju­ly 13 of this year. In an un­prece­dent­ed move at the open­ing of Par­lia­ment on Fri­day the Prime Min­is­ter opt­ed to put the coun­try on Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion mode less than two months af­ter a gen­er­al elec­tion was held.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts: Time­ly move

While there is spec­u­la­tion that the Prime Min­is­ter's de­ci­sion to re­turn to the polls so soon is based on the 2010/2011 bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, econ­o­mists have de­scribed the move as "po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rect." Com­ment­ing on the is­sue po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath ad­mits be­ing tak­en aback by the sud­den move but says the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship was sig­nalling that they have the elec­torate at heart. "They won by a hand­some ma­jor­i­ty and they are ex­pect­ing to do the same on Ju­ly 26. The mood right now is that the PNM is in dis­ar­ray. Even though they have ap­point­ed a new leader, the old ex­ec­u­tive re­mains and peo­ple may not have faith and trust in them." Ra­goonath does not fore­see any ma­jor cut­backs in the up­com­ing bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion, but room for eco­nom­ic de­ci­sions.

"The Prime Min­is­ter said, come Sep­tem­ber, pen­sion­ers will be re­ceiv­ing an in­crease and I ex­pect be­tween now and then she will do some more things to win the favour of the peo­ple. With re­gard to chil­dren re­ceiv­ing lap­tops... I do not know. It is some of the elec­tion promis­es they will have to wor­ry about if they are go­ing to de­liv­er. There could be room for some eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tion but I do not see and ma­jor cut­backs at this point in time." Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments was Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad who views the move as "po­lit­i­cal­ly clever". "The mo­men­tum is po­lit­i­cal­ly good at this point in time. Yes, the pop­u­la­tion is ex­haust­ed hav­ing come out of a gen­er­al elec­tion. The elec­torate is tired of the ad­ver­tise­ments and cam­paign­ing but the im­por­tant fac­tor is that the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion has been post­poned for too long. If this gov­ern­ment is peo­ple-cen­tred, as it claims, it is the right de­ci­sion."

While many MPs are too in­volved at Cab­i­net lev­el and for­get rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Ram­per­sad says this is the av­enue of re­dress for the grass­roots. "That is where the grass­roots in civ­il so­ci­ety and the un­der priv­i­leged can ex­press them­selves and make their de­mands through the lo­cal fo­rum. Too many MPs op­er­at­ing at a Cab­i­net lev­el do not reach the peo­ple. This is why lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tion is so im­por­tant. While gov­ern­ments are known to do un­pop­u­lar things, I want to de­fer, for now that there will be any strin­gent cuts com­ing giv­en that the Gov­ern­ment just came in­to pow­er and I do not think they want to an­tag­o­nise the pop­u­la­tion in any way."