The re­cent con­tro­ver­sy in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives sur­round­ing the ap­proval of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Re­port for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, which are now due to be held on De­cem­ber 2 in­stant, has once again raised the is­sue of an ab­sence of con­sen­sus over elec­toral bound­aries.

This is not a new ar­gu­ment. The re­cent quar­rels in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives about the ap­proval of the EBC Bound­ary Re­port for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions might have been heard back in 1961 when the first bound­aries were drawn for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ahead of the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The re­sult of the 1956 gen­er­al elec­tion had pro­duced 13 seats for the PNM out of 24 in the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil which al­so had five nom­i­nat­ed mem­bers. The de­pen­dence of the PNM on nom­i­nat­ed mem­bers was es­tab­lished there.

The 1958 Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment elec­tions jolt­ed the PNM as Trinidad and To­ba­go were di­vid­ed based on com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent elec­toral bound­aries from 1956. In­stead of 24 seats, there were now on­ly ten seats. Those ten seats were Port-of-Spain West/Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain East, St Ann’s, St George East, Ca­roni, Na­pari­ma/San Fer­nan­do, Vic­to­ria, St Patrick, East­ern Coun­ties, and To­ba­go. The re­sult was that the PNM (which was af­fil­i­at­ed to the West In­di­an Fed­er­al Labour Par­ty) won four seats, while the Fed­er­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty (DLP) which had the PDP, TLP and POPPG as part of its Trinidad and To­ba­go com­po­nent, won the oth­er six seats.

The draw­ing of bound­aries for the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go on the ba­sis of the 1956 gen­er­al elec­tion and the 1958 Fed­er­al elec­tions was go­ing to be a hot­ly con­test­ed mat­ter and, in­deed, it was.

On Jan­u­ary 9, 1961, the Re­port of the Elec­toral Dis­tricts Bound­aries Com­mis­sion to the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil to­geth­er with the Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port by Stephen C Ma­haraj was laid be­fore the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil (Coun­cil Pa­per No 1 of 1961).

The mem­bers of that com­mit­tee were Mr Speak­er Mor­timer Duke, Mr Jus­tice Clement Phillips, Mr Patrick Solomon, Mr C Arnold Thoma­sos, and Mr Stephen C Ma­haraj. They di­vid­ed four-one in favour of the bound­aries that were go­ing to be im­ple­ment­ed for the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tion in 30 con­stituen­cies in­stead of the 24 con­stituen­cies that were con­test­ed in 1956.

The di­vi­sion of To­ba­go in­to two con­stituen­cies de­spite its small­er elec­toral pop­u­la­tion was re­solved in para­graph 10(6) of the re­port as fol­lows:

“There was much dis­cus­sion with re­spect to the pro­pos­al that To­ba­go should be di­vid­ed in­to two elec­toral dis­tricts. In the end, the pro­pos­al was unan­i­mous­ly agreed to by the com­mis­sion.”

How­ev­er, in re­spect of Trinidad, the Op­po­si­tion mem­ber Stephen Ma­haraj point­ed to one of the sources of his dis­agree­ment in his Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port, in part, as fol­lows:

“To­ba­go, To­co-Man­zanil­la and Ari­ma have been giv­en spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion. A com­par­i­son of twen­ty-four con­stituen­cies shown be­low in­di­cates that 1/10 of the re­main­ing land area in Trinidad with a vot­ing pop­u­la­tion of 141,985 car­ries 12 seats where­as 9/10 of the land area with a vot­ing pop­u­la­tion of 147,598 car­ries 12 seats. This is very clear­ly un­just treat­ment of the sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas and a clear vi­o­la­tion of the Or­der in Coun­cil.” (p 20)

The sever­i­ty of the dis­agree­ment can best be cap­tured by Ma­haraj’s words in his Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port as fol­lows:

“I have ab­solute­ly no doubt that the guid­ing prin­ci­ples which were fol­lowed by the Gov­ern­ment nom­i­nees and sup­port­ed by Mr Jus­tice Clement Phillips were to ger­ry­man­der seats and jug­gle with the pop­u­la­tion in such a man­ner as to cre­ate ac­cord­ing to re­sult of re­cent elec­tions a ma­jor­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment Par­ty even though it meant a com­plete dis­re­gard of our Terms of Ref­er­ence.” (p 21)

In 1974, the Wood­ing Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed a mixed sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the first-past-the-post sys­tem. It was re­ject­ed by Williams and the PNM at that time.

A mixed sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion and the first-past-the-post was in­tro­duced for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in 2013 by re­mov­ing the nom­i­na­tion process for al­der­men and hav­ing them al­lo­cat­ed by pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

The deep sus­pi­cions laid bare in the Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port of Stephen Ma­haraj in 1961 have re­mained through­out the years and un­less there is fur­ther elec­toral re­form, these ar­gu­ments will per­sist.

Pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion on a wider scale with­in re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions might be a first start as nei­ther ma­jor par­ty has been dis­ad­van­taged by the 2013 and 2016 lo­cal gov­ern­ment pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion re­sults.