Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The Prime Min­is­ter is con­sid­er­ing two pos­si­ble dates for the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion–Ju­ly 22 and Ju­ly 29.Cab­i­net sources said the elec­tion was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due on or be­fore Au­gust 9."In T&T, elec­tions are al­ways held on a Mon­day so this means that the clos­est Mon­day that the elec­tion could be held is Au­gust 5," the source told the T&T Guardian.

How­ev­er, the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty had asked that the elec­tion not to be held in the last ten days of Ra­madan."This ef­fec­tive­ly rules out Au­gust 5, so the dates that are now be­ing con­sid­ered are Ju­ly 22 and Ju­ly 29," the source said.Asked whether dis­cus­sions were held at Cab­i­net lev­el to de­cide the date, the source said no. How­ev­er, both dates came up for dis­cus­sion un­of­fi­cial­ly.

The UNC has not yet in­di­cat­ed whether for­mer Ch­agua­nas MP, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and par­ty chair­man Jack Warn­er will be se­lect­ed to con­test the seat on be­half of the par­ty.Warn­er has in­sist­ed that he has the loy­al­ty of 31 par­ty groups in the con­stituen­cy and has al­ready ful­filled the re­quire­ments to con­test the seat.Sev­er­al Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, in­clud­ing Ha­ji Ya­coob Ali, head of the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Jam­mat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), gave per­mis­sion for the by-elec­tion to be held dur­ing the fast pe­ri­od of Ra­madan.

Ali, how­ev­er, called on the Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er the ten-day pe­ri­od at the cli­max of the month of Ra­madan, from Ju­ly 29 to Au­gust 8.Ali said, how­ev­er, if the elec­tion was called in the last days of Ra­madan, the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty would still work with that date be­cause on­ly a small part of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in Ch­agua­nas would be af­fect­ed.