Sascha Wil­son

Re­gard­less of the out­come of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, every vot­er will win be­cause of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day. Af­ter vot­ing short­ly af­ter 2 pm yes­ter­day at the Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian School, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told mem­bers of the me­dia: "I think by this evening af­ter all the votes are cast every­one, man, woman, who has vot­ed will know and feel that he or she has won and every­one will win.

"Every­one will win be­cause whilst pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion had been on the na­tion­al agen­da for decades, my ad­min­is­tra­tion ac­tu­al­ly put this in­to ef­fect and at the end of the day every sin­gle vote will count and every sin­gle per­son will win be­cause of that pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive re­form." The PM said al­though a mil­lion peo­ple are reg­is­tered to vote the vot­er turnout for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions was not as high as in a gen­er­al elec­tion.

Re­ports reach­ing her, she said, were that vot­ing turnout was slow but steady and there were no in­ci­dents, ex­cept that at some polling sta­tions the ink was com­ing off eas­i­ly. Told that for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, af­ter vot­ing in San Fer­nan­do, said he was bow­ing out of pol­i­tics at the next elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar wished him well. "Mr Man­ning has served our coun­try well as our Prime Min­is­ter on more than one oc­ca­sion. I wish him best of luck in any fu­ture en­deav­ours he may en­gage in," she said.

Asked about the tim­ing of the right-to-re­call law, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Bet­ter late than nev­er. It is some­thing we had promised. "We still have 18 months in gov­ern­ment. I re­al­ly want to keep as many (as pos­si­ble) of those promis­es we made in 2010 and that is one as­pect of it." She said the Gov­ern­ment had a rough draft of the law which will be passed on to the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion "as soon as pos­si­ble" and then sent for Cab­i­net ap­proval.