Ger­ard Best

If the con­sti­tu­tion­al changes be­ing pro­posed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were in ef­fect dur­ing the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day would have been forced to face a runoff vote for his Cou­va North seat and he would have had plen­ty com­pa­ny.On Mon­day, the PM pro­posed a se­ries of changes to the elec­toral process, in­clud­ing term lim­its, the right to re­call non-per­form­ing MPs and the in­tro­duc­tion of a sec­ond bal­lot runoff vote sys­tem.

"A runoff poll is pro­posed so that each mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will on­ly be­come such a mem­ber if he ob­tains more than 50 per cent of the votes cast in a con­stituen­cy," the PM said.The map (Page A1) of the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions re­sults high­lights the po­ten­tial im­pact of that spe­cif­ic pro­posed con­sti­tu­tion­al change. Four­teen of the 41 elec­toral dis­tricts–more than 33 per cent of the avail­able seats–would have re­quired a runoff vote.

That elec­tion was won 26-15 by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and in­ter­est­ing­ly, the win­ner is like­ly to have re­mained the same, as the runoffs would have been re­quired most­ly in the 15 con­stituen­cies won by the UNC.In­clud­ing Pan­day, a to­tal of nine UNC can­di­dates would have gone back to the polls for runoffs, in Ca­roni Cen­tral, Cou­va North, Cou­va South, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Fyz­abad, Ma­yaro, Princes Town North, Tabaquite and Vas­ant Bharath's St Au­gus­tine.

Bharath's runoff would have been against his cur­rent coali­tion coun­ter­part Win­ston Dook­er­an, who was then po­lit­i­cal leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP).The re­main­der of the UNC wins–Ca­roni East, Jack Warn­er's Ch­agua­nas West, Na­pari­ma, Roodal Mooni­lal's Oropouche East, Oropouche West and the Prime Min­is­ter's Siparia con­stituen­cy–would have been won out­right.The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) would al­so have been af­fect­ed, al­though to a less­er de­gree.

Of their 26 seats, five would have been re­turned to the polls–Barataria/San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, Pointe-a-Pierre, Princes Town South/Table­land and St Joseph.

In this sce­nario, the PNM would still have won 21 seats out­right–Ari­ma, Arou­ca/Mal­oney, D'Abadie/O'Meara, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North/East, Diego Mar­tin West, La Brea, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West, Lopinot/Bon Air West, Point Fortin, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West, Port-of-Spain South, San Fer­nan­do East, St Ann's East, To­ba­go East, To­ba­go West, To­co/San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna.

In the May 24, 2010 polls, none of the win­ning can­di­dates got less than 50 per cent of the votes so no runoffs would have been need­ed. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion gov­ern­ment beat the PNM 29-12 in that elec­tion.