Richard Lord

Chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, says her par­ty has al­ready start­ed prepa­ra­tion to con­test all elec­toral dis­tricts in the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.She said the dis­tricts to be con­test­ed by the COP will be de­ter­mined af­ter ne­go­ti­a­tions among all the par­ties in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan made the dis­clo­sure in an in­ter­view with re­porters yes­ter­day. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the elec­tions will be held when con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due, by Oc­to­ber of this year. The three-year term ex­pires on Ju­ly 26. A to­tal of 126 seats are to be con­test­ed.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the elec­tions will be con­test­ed un­der the PP ban­ner. Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the COP had al­ready start­ed its elec­tion prepa­ra­tion and had in­vit­ed in­ter­est­ed peo­ple to ap­ply to be prospec­tive can­di­dates.

She said forms had been dis­trib­uted to peo­ple who might have an in­ter­est in con­test­ing un­der the COP ban­ner.Seep­er­sad-Bachan was asked if she felt it wise for the mem­ber par­ties of the PP Gov­ern­ment to con­test the elec­tions sep­a­rate­ly, af­ter the hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat of an­oth­er PP mem­ber unit–the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple–by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in Jan­u­ary's To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she did not want to "pre-judge or prej­u­dice at this time. I would pre­fer that we have that di­a­logue first and that we al­low for the frame­work to be es­tab­lished to fa­cil­i­tate the ne­go­ti­a­tions as we go for­ward."The COP's na­tion­al coun­cil will meet to­mor­row, she said, when more de­tails are ex­pect­ed to be re­leased on the is­sue of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. "COP will make its own state­ment there," she added.

She said the chair­men of the units of the PP will be meet­ing this morn­ing to dis­cuss cer­tain is­sues. Oth­er units of the PP Gov­ern­ment are the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee.She said she was man­dat­ed by the COP na­tion­al coun­cil to "start the ne­go­ti­a­tions for the seats and I in­tend to do so at that lev­el, which will then be tak­en to the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers' lev­el."

Seep­er­sad-Bachan said in the in­ter­im the COP was prepar­ing to con­test all seats.On an­oth­er mat­ter, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she had re­ceived a let­ter from COP mem­ber and Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts ask­ing her to apol­o­gise for cer­tain re­marks she made about him af­ter re­ports about an al­leged probe in the me­dia last month.She in­sist­ed yes­ter­day that her com­ments had been made on a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple and were not specif­i­cal­ly about Roberts.

Asked if there were ten­sions in the Cab­i­net, in­clud­ing re­la­tions with Roberts, she said: "The is­sue is it is some­thing that we will all man­age and I re­al­ly do not want to com­ment on what takes place in Cab­i­net."She said she was of the strong con­vic­tion that "mat­ters which take place in the Cab­i­net are not for the pub­lic do­main" and the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing was held to in­form the pub­lic about mat­ters au­tho­rised by the Cab­i­net.