Shal­iza Has­sanali

"It's a scan­dal!" That's how Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj de­scribes the post­pone­ment of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. "The post­pone­ment of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion is a scan­dal and one of the great­est con­tempt for the rights to vote and the rights of peo­ple to choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives," Ma­haraj said yes­ter­day. If Gov­ern­ment gets their way, Ma­haraj said, it would be the fourth post­pone­ment to fa­cil­i­tate the re­form process.

On Fri­day, Ma­haraj said mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives were hand­ed copies of a note, which stat­ed that the pur­pose of the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill 2009, was to ex­tend the term of of­fice of the mem­bers of the mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions for a pe­ri­od of one year. from the date of ex­pi­ra­tion of the ex­ist­ing term.

Ma­haraj said the de­lay of the elec­tion would no doubt bring fur­ther suf­fer­ing to cit­i­zens. "There are coun­cil­lors who are not rep­re­sent­ing their ar­eas and just col­lect­ing mon­ey, while peo­ple suf­fer­ing for roads, drainage and bridges. "This would on­ly ag­gra­vate their suf­fer­ings, and to com­pound mat­ters, these peo­ple would not have the right to move them out of of­fice."

Ma­haraj said dur­ing a tour of his con­stituen­cy yes­ter­day, many con­stituents ex­pressed con­cern about the post­pone­ment. He said the Gov­ern­ment planned to take the re­form of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee, which took be­tween six and nine months. "So we can safe­ly say there will be no lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions in Trinidad for an­oth­er year."

Ma­haraj feels that a gen­er­al elec­tion was like­ly to be called ear­ly next year, be­fore a date was an­nounced for lo­cal polls. The plan, Ma­haraj said, was for Man­ning to catch the op­po­si­tion par­ties with their pants down. Ma­haraj said the Ram­jack fac­tion would not be caught off guard, since they had a plan should lo­cal or a gen­er­al elec­tion be called.