Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Elec­tions have of­fi­cial­ly re­ceived their Writs of Elec­tion, mark­ing the for­mal start of the elec­toral process ahead of polling day on Jan­u­ary 12, 2026.

The pre­sen­ta­tion of writs was con­duct­ed un­der Elec­tion Rule 3 of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act, Chap­ter 2:01, which em­pow­ers re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to con­duct the poll on be­half of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion.

A state­ment from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion yes­ter­day said EBC Chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh, while ad­dress­ing of­fi­cers, de­scribed them as “guardians of the process on the ground,” en­trust­ed with main­tain­ing the in­tegri­ty and pub­lic con­fi­dence in the na­tion’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem.

He said every elec­tion, re­gard­less of its size, must be car­ried out with pro­fes­sion­al­ism, im­par­tial­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing in­tegri­ty.

“The peo­ple of To­ba­go ex­pect an or­der­ly, trans­par­ent, and trust­wor­thy process,” he said. “What you do im­pacts democ­ra­cy di­rect­ly, and it is a great ser­vice to this coun­try.”

Chair­man Ramk­er­rysingh en­cour­aged of­fi­cers to lead with pur­pose and strong in­ter­per­son­al man­age­ment.

He added, “En­sure that your re­la­tion­ships with your poll day staff are good ones. Give them the nec­es­sary sup­port, guid­ance, mo­ti­va­tion, and man­age­ment. The Com­mis­sion se­lect­ed you be­cause we be­lieve you are com­pe­tent and pos­sess the nec­es­sary ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced the date for the THA elec­tion as Jan­u­ary 12.

He made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty meet­ing at D’Es­planade in Scar­bor­ough on De­cem­ber 1.