Last week, per­ti­nent is­sues sur­round­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form af­ter in­de­pen­dence were dis­cussed. That dis­cus­sion con­tin­ues this week. In the first post-in­de­pen­dence lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in 1968, the size of the elec­torate in the var­i­ous mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties and coun­ty coun­cil ar­eas was as fol­lows:

Port-of-Spain–51,920

San Fer­nan­do—22,373

Ari­ma—5,615

St George—146,004

Ca­roni—44,379

Vic­to­ria—65,139

St Patrick—54,123

St David/St An­drew—19,995

Nar­i­va/Ma­yaro—11,782

To­ba­go—15,949

Those elec­tions were con­duct­ed with vot­ing ma­chines and the 1971 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions would be the last time that vot­ing ma­chines would ever be used in T&T for any elec­tion. Those elec­tions were held on the ba­sis of an ex­ten­sion of the term of of­fice be­yond June 24, 1971, be­ing ap­proved by Par­lia­ment in or­der to per­mit them to func­tion as their term of of­fice had ex­pired.

A gen­er­al elec­tion was held on May 24, 1971 and Par­lia­ment was opened on June 18, 1971. The Lo­cal Au­thor­i­ties (Ex­ten­sion of Term of Of­fice) Act 1971 was en­act­ed and giv­en the as­sent of the Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al on June 22, 1971. The term of of­fice was ex­tend­ed to Oc­to­ber 23, 1971 and the elec­tions were held on No­vem­ber 1, 1971.

More de­layed elec­tions would fol­low as the 1974 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were thrice post­poned by Acts of Par­lia­ment—Lo­cal Au­thor­i­ties (Ex­ten­sion of Term of Of­fice) Acts, No. 33 of 1974, No. 48 of 1975 and No 47 of 1976. The 1977 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions was held on April 25, 1977.

These 1977 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held us­ing the bal­lot box in­stead of the vot­ing ma­chines. This elec­tion would al­so mark the last time that a Coun­ty Coun­cil elec­tion would be held in To­ba­go.

The 1980 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held on April 21, 1980, in Trinidad on­ly. The first-ever To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions were held on No­vem­ber 24, 1980, which ush­ered in a high­er lev­el of lo­cal gov­er­nance for To­ba­go.

The elec­tions were held on time in 1983 and were de­layed un­til 1987 ow­ing to the fact that 1986 was the year for hold­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion. Those elec­tions were due to be held in 1990, how­ev­er, lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in Trinidad were post­poned from 1990 af­ter Act No 21 of 1990 was passed and then there was an at­tempt­ed coup which dis­rupt­ed the hold­ing of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions that year un­der the new lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem that had been in­tro­duced by the NAR Gov­ern­ment.

The PNM re­turned to pow­er in the 1991 gen­er­al elec­tion and on June 15, 1992, the fol­low­ing bills were brought to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, name­ly (i) The Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill which sought to make amend­ments to Act 21 of 1990 and (ii) the Mu­nic­i­pal Coun­cils 1992 Elec­tions (Spe­cial Pro­vi­sions) Bill which sought to make spe­cial pro­vi­sion for the pub­li­ca­tion and re­vi­sion of the list of elec­tors for the Mu­nic­i­pal Coun­cil elec­tions of 1992 and to make spe­cial pro­vi­sion re­gard­ing the bound­aries of the elec­toral dis­tricts for those elec­tions.

These bills were pi­lot­ed by the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, Ken­neth Val­ley in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on June 15 and 24, 1992 and then in the Sen­ate on June 30 and Ju­ly 7, 1992, af­ter which lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held on Sep­tem­ber 28, 1992.

There was a change of gov­ern­ment in 1995 and lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions were held in 1996 and again in 1999. There was a change of gov­ern­ment in 2001 and lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions that were due in 2002 were held in 2003. Af­ter that, there was a sev­en-year de­lay be­fore lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions would be held in 2010 fol­low­ing an­oth­er change of gov­ern­ment.

In 2013, pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion was in­tro­duced for the elec­tion of al­der­men in the cor­po­ra­tions and elec­tions were held in 2016. Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley has now promised that lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions will be held in 2019.

The cul­ture of er­rat­ic dates for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions needs to end. The ex­i­gen­cies of the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment or the po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience of the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate ought to be re­moved from any con­sid­er­a­tion for hold­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. The in­tro­duc­tion of fixed dates for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in­to the Con­sti­tu­tion as a means of se­cur­ing the in­tegri­ty of those elec­tions ought to be giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion if lo­cal gov­ern­ment is to mean some­thing more than the op­por­tu­ni­ty to screen can­di­dates, test the po­lit­i­cal wa­ters, and grant po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age de­pend­ing up­on who wins con­trol of a cor­po­ra­tion.