RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With gen­er­al elec­tions loom­ing just a year ahead, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion has un­veiled sig­nif­i­cant rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing the re­nam­ing of five con­stituen­cies and al­ter­ations to 16 more con­stituen­cies in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This was re­vealed as the EBC’s 2024 Re­port on the re­view of con­stituen­cy bound­aries dat­ed March 13, 2024, was laid in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. 

Based on the re­port, Arou­ca/Mal­oney will be­come Trinci­ty/Mal­oney, D’Abadie/O’Meara will be re­named Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca, Lopinot/Bon Air West will change to Arou­ca/Lopinot, St Joseph will be­come Aranguez/St Joseph, and Pointe-a-Pierre will be called Clax­ton Bay. 

The EBC al­so sug­gest­ed main­tain­ing the cur­rent num­ber of con­stituen­cies, with 39 in Trinidad and two in To­ba­go. 

The com­mis­sion ad­vised against al­ter­ing the bound­aries of 23 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad and main­tain­ing the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the two con­stituen­cies in To­ba­go. 

How­ev­er, the EBC pro­posed al­ter­ations for 16 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad, in­clud­ing trans­fers of polling di­vi­sions to op­ti­mise rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Some of these al­ter­na­tions were in Ca­roni Cen­tral, due to the trans­fer of a Polling Di­vi­sion from the con­stituen­cy to Tabaquite. In Tabaquite, the EBC al­so pro­posed changes due to the trans­fer of an­oth­er Polling Di­vi­sion from Ca­roni Cen­tral and the trans­fer of an­oth­er Polling Di­vi­sion to Pointe-a-Pierre. 

In Pointe-a-Pierre, changes were pro­posed due to the trans­fer of a Polling Di­vi­sion from Tabaquite. 

In Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, the trans­fer of a Polling Di­vi­sion to La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro war­rant­ed al­ter­ations while in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, changes were rec­om­mend­ed due to the trans­fer of a Polling Di­vi­sion from Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. 

 Sim­i­lar trans­fers of Polling Di­vi­sions were list­ed for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Laven­tille West, Port-of-Spain South and Laven­tille East/Mor­vant. 

In San Fer­nan­do East, two polling di­vi­sions were trans­ferred from Oropouche East while two more were trans­ferred from San Fer­nan­do East to San Fer­nan­do West. Fur­ther­more, the com­mis­sion pro­posed that the names of 36 con­stituen­cies re­main un­changed. 

The 147-page re­port al­so de­tailed out­lines of the con­stituen­cies, both al­tered and un­al­tered, along with the dis­tri­b­u­tion of polling di­vi­sions by con­stituen­cy.

 The EBC said its rec­om­men­da­tions aim to en­sure fair and eq­ui­table rep­re­sen­ta­tion for all cit­i­zens. 

Ac­cord­ing to the Con­sti­tu­tion, the elec­torate in any con­stituen­cy should not be more than 110 per cent or less than 90 per cent of the to­tal of the is­land di­vid­ed by the num­ber of con­stituen­cies.

Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to con­sid­er the re­port.

Just last week, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed vic­to­ry af­ter the de­ci­sion to lay the EBC re­port in Par­lia­ment was an­nounced.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had been call­ing for the re­port to be laid ques­tion­ing what she called a de­lay on the part of Gov­ern­ment.

In a press re­lease, the Op­po­si­tion Leader said, “This fol­lows my re­cent threats of le­gal ac­tion and a for­mal query to the EBC.”

The UNC had said the re­port was due in March.