JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, May 29, 2025

PM Rowley announces Aug 14 Local Govt Elections date

by

Akash Samaroo
722 days ago
20230607

Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Af­ter weeks of spec­u­la­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter de­clared that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions will take place on Mon­day, Au­gust 14.

Dr Kei­th Row­ley made the an­nounce­ment via The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Face­book page yes­ter­day where he added that the date for nom­i­na­tions will be Mon­day, June 26. The an­nounce­ment comes al­most three weeks af­ter the Privy Coun­cil ruled that the Gov­ern­ment was wrong to post­pone the elec­tions and ex­tend the life of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials by one year. Row­ley has al­so cho­sen to call the poll a mere four days be­fore the 90-day win­dow for hold­ing of the elec­tions elaps­es.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), in a state­ment yes­ter­day, called the an­nounce­ment of the elec­tion date a vic­to­ry on its own.

“Due to our hard work and fight­ing for the pro­tec­tion of the rights of our cit­i­zens, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions has fi­nal­ly been an­nounced. We are on the road to vic­to­ry. Stand your ground and re­mem­ber, don’t tote just vote UNC.”

Gov­ern­ment went down to the wire to un­der­take dam­age con­trol–Ram­per­sad

But the Au­gust 14 date came as no sur­prise to po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad who told Guardian Me­dia that the Gov­ern­ment went down to the wire to un­der­take dam­age con­trol. The Gov­ern­ment will utilise the close to 90 days to cam­paign in the polls.

“I will say they took the full length of it be­cause there are a lot of is­sues they need to cam­paign on, at midterms Gov­ern­ment is usu­al­ly at its low­est ebb, but this Gov­ern­ment seems to be low­er than the low­est ebb with the es­ca­lat­ing crime and home in­va­sions, mur­ders ga­lore and the crim­i­nals are reign­ing freely, pan­de­mo­ni­um has bro­ken out and it’s chaot­ic at best.”

But last Thurs­day at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Mal­abar, Dr Row­ley an­nounced that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will be fo­cus­ing on a “sin­gle is­sue” which is lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.

Dr Ram­per­sad said the PNM leader has to say that be­cause there are few suc­cess­es to cam­paign on.

“They cer­tain­ly can’t cam­paign on achieve­ments with crime or em­ploy­ment or in­fla­tion or the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, so they come with this bril­liant idea of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form which I don’t think one per cent of the pop­u­la­tion is in­ter­est­ed in.”

Dr Ram­per­sad said she was still con­fused as to what is the PNM’s vi­sion for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form apart from ex­tend­ing the terms of coun­cil­lors and al­der­men and prop­er­ty tax.

Mean­while, she ex­pects the UNC to make some in­roads in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

The 2019 re­sults saw the UNC tak­ing 54.38 per cent of the 372,503 votes. But the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is­sued a state­ment a day af­ter the De­cem­ber 2, 2019 elec­tions claim­ing vic­to­ry hav­ing won 74 dis­tricts (seats) over the UNC’s 65. Both par­ties won sev­en cor­po­ra­tions, with the UNC cap­tur­ing San­gre Grande which was pre­vi­ous­ly held by the PNM.

Dr Ram­per­sad be­lieves their nine-seat ad­van­tage is un­der threat.

“I think they (UNC) can make some in­roads in San­gre Grande, in Tu­na­puna which is very mar­gin­al, and in San Fer­nan­do where you have the con­stituen­cy of San Fer­nan­do West, be­cause of the dis­gruntle­ment with the in­cum­bent and the poor per­for­mance of lo­cal gov­ern­ment agents who are not touch­ing the lives of cit­i­zens.

Dr Ram­per­sad be­lieves the 7-7 tie in 2019 can al­so be­come 8-6 in favour of the UNC.

She does not, how­ev­er, have any con­fi­dence in a “third par­ty” play­ing a sig­nif­i­cant part this time around.

“I don’t see them pulling any, they have not in the past, not even the COP (Con­gress of the Peo­ple) which had 147,000 votes in 2007, or the ONR (Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion)which had 90,000 votes in 1991, so I don’t see how these young new par­ties can do that.”

Dr Ram­per­sad said the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) has a role to play in To­ba­go where it is more es­tab­lished. PDP leader Wat­son Duke told Guardian Me­dia that his par­ty was screen­ing can­di­dates, and he is con­fi­dent of win­ning two dis­tricts along the East-West Cor­ri­dor.

The po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist al­so has very lit­tle faith in the Gary Grif­fith-led Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA).

“We hear the leader, but who are the mem­bers of that par­ty?” she asked.

Dr Ram­per­sad al­so an­tic­i­pates an­oth­er low vot­er turnout but one that is syn­ony­mous with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions in this coun­try.

“I don’t see any­thing be­yond a 40 per cent turnout.”

In 2019 on­ly 34.49 per cent of the elec­torate came out to vote.

Ra­goonath: We hope that the elec­tions will be very clean

Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, Chair­man of the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour, is re­it­er­at­ing his call for po­lit­i­cal par­ties to ad­here to the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct.

“We hope that it will be a very clean elec­tion,” he said dur­ing an in­ter­view on the CNC3 news last night.

Dr Ra­goonath ex­plained that there is a pro­hib­it­ed item list­ed in the code and the coun­cil will be look­ing at that close­ly.

He said now that all par­ties have signed on to the code, “now we ex­pect that they will fo­cus on the elec­tions, fo­cus on the is­sues not on per­sons, not on per­son­al­i­ties”

He ad­mit­ted that the coun­cil has no pow­er of sanc­tion but rather, “we will try to use moral sua­sion to get the po­lit­i­cal par­ties to tone it down if they need to tone it down.”

He said they will al­so re­port any breach­es to the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion and leave it up to vot­ers to draw their con­clu­sions.

Now that the elec­tions date has been called, Dr Ra­goonath said for the next two or three weeks po­lit­i­cal par­ties would go about fi­nal­is­ing their can­di­dates.

“Can­di­dates who have al­ready been cho­sen by their re­spec­tive par­ties will start hit­ting the ground, knock­ing on doors, kiss­ing ba­bies, and all those sorts of things,” he added.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored