Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has set Mon­day, Ju­ly 29 as the date for the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion. Her an­nounce­ment was made at the end of an 18-hour sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day morn­ing.Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her four-minute state­ment in Par­lia­ment, said the de­ci­sion to hold the elec­tion on Ju­ly 29 was in keep­ing with a 2010 elec­tion promise to hold all elec­tions when they were con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due. The by-elec­tion was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due no lat­er than Au­gust 10.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she met with sev­er­al Mus­lim lead­ers re­cent­ly to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of call­ing the elec­tion dur­ing the month of Ra­madan which is ex­pect­ed to be­gin on Ju­ly 9 (based on the sight­ing of the moon).The Mus­lim lead­ers as­sured the PM they had no ob­jec­tion to it be­ing held dur­ing Ra­madan, the PM said. Pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the An­ju­man Sun­nat ul Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) Ya­coob Ali asked if it was pos­si­ble not to call the elec­tion in the last ten days of Ra­madan be­cause Mus­lims would be con­fined to the mosque.On June 7, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) com­plet­ed its reg­is­tra­tion ex­er­cise for all cit­i­zens wish­ing to en­sure their names were on the elec­tors' list. The EBC said there was an in­crease of 1,269 vot­ers in the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy. More than 26,000 peo­ple are el­i­gi­ble to vote.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has not con­firmed its can­di­date for the elec­tion as yet. Among those tipped as a pos­si­ble can­di­date is Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ments Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment would se­lect its can­di­date on Mon­day.For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, who re­signed the seat on April 26, said he was not sur­prised by the date and was con­fi­dent of re-elec­tion. Warn­er, who re­signed as UNC chair­man and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, was elect­ed in May 2010 af­ter he re­ceived more than 18,000 votes.