The ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed date for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions was not de­clared but the prime min­is­ter said it can be ex­pect­ed with­in the next three months.

The an­nounce­ment was made just be­fore 3 pm by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as he ad­dressed mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

How­ev­er, Dr Row­ley said leg­is­la­tion will be brought to the Par­lia­ment to val­i­date the work of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies be­tween the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 2022 to May 18, 2023 and then for a fur­ther three months lead­ing up to elec­tions.

"This piece of leg­is­la­tion is ex­pect­ed to be ready and laid in Par­lia­ment and tak­en through all the stages of this ho­n­ourable house on Mon­day 29, May, 2023, once this is ac­com­plished the date for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion with­in the 90-day win­dow will be an­nounced."

His state­ment comes days af­ter the Privy Coun­cil's judg­ment on May 18, which ruled that the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment term from last De­cem­ber to De­cem­ber 3, 2023, was un­law­ful. The orig­i­nal end date for the term was March 2023.

How­ev­er, the prime min­is­ter said there was noth­ing in the rul­ing that said the ex­ten­sion was a breach of peo­ple's con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

"To this ac­cu­sa­tion, the Gov­ern­ment pleads not guilty."

He posit­ed that at no time the Gov­ern­ment act­ed with any ma­li­cious in­tent to cit­i­zens' rights.

On Tues­day in the Sen­ate ques­tions were asked by both In­de­pen­dent and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors who queried the le­gal­i­ty of the ac­tions of coun­cil­lors and re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions giv­en the Privy Coun­cil's rul­ing.

In ad­dress­ing their con­cerns to­day, Dr Row­ley sought to as­sure the Par­lia­ment that, "there is a re­spon­si­ble Gov­ern­ment in of­fice."

Dr Row­ley said the en­tire im­broglio came down to "an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of in­tent" of the rea­son for the "short ex­ten­sion" to the life of elect­ed of­fi­cers was done for a smooth tran­si­tion to im­ple­ment re­forms to the lo­cal gov­ern­ment which the prime min­is­ter be­lieves is in the best in­ter­est of the na­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties such as the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots have al­ready con­firmed that their nom­i­na­tion process has be­gun and in the case of the UNC screen­ing of po­ten­tial can­di­dates will be­gin soon.