Gail Alexan­der

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions ac­tiv­i­ties by po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­gin tonight and vot­er reg­is­tra­tion al­so moves in­to high gear.No­vem­ber 26 is the fi­nal dead­line for vot­er reg­is­tra­tion for up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on Fri­day.

This fol­lows last Thurs­day's an­nounce­ment of the No­vem­ber 28 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions date. The term of mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions end­ed on Fri­day. The EBC's chief elec­tions of­fi­cer, Ramesh Nanan, said the pre­lim­i­nary vot­ers' list stood at 1,060481 at Oc­to­ber 13.

A re­vised list will be done af­ter reg­is­tra­tion con­tin­ues over the next week and a sup­ple­men­tal list will be added to the cur­rent 1,060481 list­ing af­ter the fi­nal No­vem­ber 26 dead­line.

Nanan re­port­ed no prepa­ra­tion prob­lems or over­crowd­ing by po­ten­tial vot­ers yet. He said the EBC did the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions draft or­der since June 2014 fol­low­ing the last 2013 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment poll and was oil­ing ma­chin­ery since.

The draft or­der in­creased Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment seats from 134 in 2013 to 137 cur­rent­ly and al­so stip­u­lat­ed changes in three re­gion­al ar­eas–Tu­na­puna -Pi­ar­co, Ari­ma and Pe­nal/Debe.

The 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in­volved from a min­i­mum of six seats (Point Fortin, Ma­yaro/ Rio Claro) to a max­i­mum of 16 cur­rent­ly (Tu­na­puna Pi­ar­co). Main changes in the EBC or­der are in the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co re­gion with the ad­di­tion of a new seat of Cara­po.

The ad­di­tion caused "slight changes" (Nanan said) in nine sur­round­ing elec­toral ar­eas in Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, and al­so changes in names of three elec­toral dis­tricts in there.

In the Ari­ma mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion, there are changes in bound­aries of four elec­toral ar­eas. There are al­so bound­ary changes in four ar­eas in Pe­nal/Debe. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties be­gin "ramp­ing up" Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment ac­tiv­i­ties from tonight.

The rul­ing PNM will be seek­ing to in­crease the eight cor­po­ra­tions it con­trols and the Op­po­si­tion UNC, to add the six cor­po­ra­tions it con­trols.

Yes­ter­day, UNC of­fi­cials and MPs in all ar­eas met with teams to fine-tune cam­paign arrange­ments.

The PNM and UNC each have full slates of 137 can­di­dat­es­The UNC, which launched cam­paign­ing in Sep­tem­ber, starts in­ten­si­fy­ing with tonight's Mon­day Night Fo­rum at Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary School, St Lu­cien Road.

The PNM has some elec­tion ac­tiv­i­ty at Thurs­day's PNM Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Mau­si­ca.Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment themes will al­so be in force at next Sun­day's PNM an­nu­al con­ven­tion at Queen's Park Sa­van­nah.

Can­di­dates and man­i­festo may be pre­viewed. Elec­tion of PNM ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cers will be done. Sev­er­al in­cum­bents are con­test­ing.The Con­gress of the Peo­ple is con­test­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls in nine ar­eas in south and cen­tral.

The ILP has called for nom­i­na­tions up to Oc­to­ber 28 with em­pha­sis on the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough and from peo­ple liv­ing in oth­er ar­eas who wish to con­test.