Gail Alexan­der

T&T will go to the polls in a gen­er­al elec­tion on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 7.

A day af­ter hint­ing about a pos­si­ble elec­tion date, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced it in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at 2.31 pm yes­ter­day, cli­max­ing an ad­dress to the Par­lia­ment which closed the fi­nal ses­sion of the Tenth Par­lia­ment.

"Mr Speak­er, the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment is ready to re­turn to the vot­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We're ready be­cause we are proud of our record of achieve­ment. We're ready be­cause our promis­es have been kept. I wish to ad­vise gen­er­al elec­tions in T&T will be held on Mon­day, 7 Sep­tem­ber 2015," the PM de­clared.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to dis­solve the Par­lia­ment at mid­night on June 17–the of­fi­cial end of the term of the cur­rent Tenth Par­lia­ment.

The Sep­tem­ber elec­tion date means po­lit­i­cal par­ties–and T&T–will ex­pe­ri­ence two and a half months of cam­paign­ing.

Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Ramesh Nanan said, yes­ter­day, EBC law stip­u­lates that nom­i­na­tion day for can­di­dates must be no less than 21 days be­fore the elec­tion date. That would be mid-Au­gust.

In an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion af­ter yes­ter­day's par­lia­ment ses­sion end­ed, Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy leader Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, who head­ed PNM MPs in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, de­clared, "We ready–let's rum­ble!"

Em­bat­tled In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er briefly mut­tered, "Long over­due..."

Af­ter the PM's an­nounce­ment and the clo­sure of Par­lia­ment at 2.45 pm, the PM and Mc­Don­ald shook hands warm­ly and oth­er MPs from both the PP and PNM shook hands; some hugged or kissed,

Sev­er­al PP MPs shook hands with Warn­er as they all said good­bye to the tenth par­lia­men­tary term and left to pre­pare for elec­tion bat­tle.

That got un­der­way last night when Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed UNC sup­port­ers at Clax­ton Bay. She will al­so of­fi­cial­ly kick off the cam­paign at a Mon­day Night Fo­rum at the UNC's Rien­zi Com­plex on Mon­day night.

In her fi­nal ad­dress to Par­lia­ment for the term, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Op­po­si­tion had tried to cre­ate pan­ic in the so­ci­ety by claim­ing if the gen­er­al elec­tion was held in Sep­tem­ber it would be too late to have a na­tion­al bud­get ap­proved. This, she said, wasn't true.

"In 2002, the then prime min­is­ter wait­ed un­til Au­gust 28 to ad­vise a dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment, af­ter he and his par­ty failed to elect a speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on two oc­ca­sions when they held the reins of pow­er af­ter the 18-18 tie. They could have dis­solved the Par­lia­ment ear­li­er and gone to the coun­try, but they chose to wait.

"The cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Leader was a mem­ber of the Cab­i­net at that time and at no point did he or any mem­ber of that gov­ern­ment ever lift a fin­ger in pub­lic to ar­gue about the time frame for the pass­ing of a bud­get."

She added, "To­day we're re­galed with these spu­ri­ous ar­gu­ments when we know that their gov­ern­ment called a gen­er­al elec­tion on Mon­day, 7 Oc­to­ber 2002 and they opened the Par­lia­ment on Thurs­day, 17 Oc­to­ber 2002 and they went im­me­di­ate­ly in­to pass­ing a bud­get in both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment be­fore the dead­line date of 31 Oc­to­ber.

"If the re­sult of that gen­er­al elec­tion had gone our way, we would have been the ones to work with the same time­lines to pass a bud­get.

"We're nowhere near those time­lines from 2002 and they should know bet­ter than to make such spu­ri­ous ar­gu­ments when there is more than ad­e­quate time to pass a bud­get if there is a gen­er­al elec­tion in Sep­tem­ber."