Gail Alexan­der

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) should con­sid­er hav­ing 13 elec­toral seats in To­ba­go in­stead of 12, says Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley. Speak­ing dur­ing yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment de­bate on an EBC?draft or­der con­cern­ing To­ba­go, he said the PNM?might want to seek changes of the 12 elec­toral seats to 13 in or­der to pre­vent a tie in the THA and en­sure a clear win­ner in elec­tions.

He not­ed par­lia­men­tary House seats were changed from 36 to pre­vent re­cur­rence of the 18-18 tie in 2002. Row­ley said he was look­ing for­ward to the To­ba­go cam­paign. "We are ready, will­ing and able to en­gage all com­ers," he added. He said the PNM?had no ba­sis to take is­sue with the EBC re­port and was sat­is­fied it was aware of what it had to do.

Row­ley sport­ed yet an­oth­er Di­vali out­fit, show­ing up for Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day in a grey Nehru col­lar out­fit, trimmed with black in­stead of his usu­al suit and tie. Row­ley wore In­di­an garb when he at­tend­ed the re­cent Di­vali Na­gar event. Yes­ter­day, he was one of four PNM?MPs in tra­di­tion­al In­di­an at­tire for the Par­lia­ment sit­ting. His col­leagues Paula Gopee-Scoon, Pa­tri­cia Mac­In­tosh and Don­na Cox al­so wore tra­di­tion­al In­di­an out­fits.

Gov­ern­ment MPs, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in roy­al pur­ple and gold, al­so were decked in Di­vali out­fits. Row­ley was asked to de­liv­er Di­vali greet­ings by House Speak­er Wade Mark af­ter Gov­ern­ment?MP?Chan­dresh Shar­ma, in a yel­low flow­ing Di­vali out­fit, did so.

Row­ley, who hes­i­tat­ed a split sec­ond be­fore ris­ing, said if he seemed re­luc­tant it was be­cause he was con­cerned if "any MP would fly out the door" when he spoke, an in­di­rect ref­er­ence to the is­sue with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er who re­fused to at­tend the open­ing of the Di­vali Na­gar on Sun­day night along­side Row­ley.