The search is a still on for T&T's next pres­i­dent. With the elec­toral col­lege sched­uled to meet on Feb­ru­ary 15 to elect a new pres­i­dent, sev­er­al names were be­ing bandied about. Among them are Speak­er Wade Mark, for­mer head of BPTT Robert Ri­ley, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Hamid Ghany, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith and Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, all of whom have been gen­er­at­ing mixed views on so­cial me­dia. An­oth­er name mak­ing the rounds is Jus­tice Am­ri­ka Ti­wary-Red­dy.

Up to last week, sources said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not have a con­firmed name of the per­son to re­place out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Richards. T&T's pres­i­dent is elect­ed by an elec­toral col­lege vot­ing by se­cret bal­lot. Ten sen­a­tors, the speak­er and 12 oth­er mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­sti­tute a quo­rum of the elec­toral col­lege.

In ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 26:04 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the elec­tion for pres­i­dent shall be held no more than 60 days nor less than 30 days be­fore the ex­pi­ra­tion of the term of that of­fice. The elec­tion for pres­i­dent must be held no soon­er than Jan­u­ary 17 and no lat­er than Feb­ru­ary 18.