When the election date was announced by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley yesterday political scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath was not surprised.
“That was what we predicted,” he said.
He explained that “the last election was on November 28th, however, councils would have taken office the first to the second week in December and in that context once they would have taken office that would be the end of their term. The expectation is that once that term runs out the new council would have already been elected.”
Just before midday yesterday, while Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar was on her legs in the Parliament chamber, the Office of the Prime Minister issued a media release as well as a Facebook post announcing the date. It said that the Writs of Elections shall be issued in due course.
In the wind up to her budget 2020 response, the Persad-Bissessar responded to the election bell and said that the United National Congress would beat the People’s National Movement.
In terms of the timing of the announcement Dr Ragoonath said it was a political move, “everything is politics and every political leader, every politician timing is everything for them,” but according to him, so were some of the measures in the 2020 budget, for example, the 15 per cent salary increase to Cepep and URP workers.
And as it relates to what he expects in terms of what will happen at the polls, Dr Ragoonath expressed the view that 4 corporations, in particular, will decide the winner.
“So, Siparia, Sangre Grande, Tunapuna/Piarco and probably Rio Claro, those are the four we would look at to see how they would play out, the other we could probably assign them already.”
But until that happens, Ragoonath, who is also the Chairman of the Council for Responsible Political Behaviour is urged political parties to be mindful of the code of ethics during the campaign.
“We (the council for responsible political behaviour) are keeping our fingers crossed that all the political parties, being aware of the code, will abide by the code they will uphold the tenants of the code and they will ensure that the ethics that are expected and the standard that is expected, that is what we are going to get.”
He also asked the public to report any breaches of the code of ethics to the council to keep political parties in check.
In the 2016 local government election, there was a tie between the UNC and PNM for the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation. The sitting chairman, Terry Rondon remained in the chair.
Overall the PNM won 83 of 137 electoral seats in the 14 corporations. The UNC netted 54.