Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

It’s of­fi­cial. A to­tal of 373 can­di­dates from ten po­lit­i­cal par­ties in­clud­ing six in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates will be con­test­ing the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions on Au­gust 14.

This was con­firmed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) yes­ter­day fol­low­ing Mon­day’s Nom­i­na­tion day process where can­di­dates filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the elec­tions. This was done at the of­fices of the EBC’s 55 Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers across Trinidad.

The elec­tions in­volve 141 elec­toral ar­eas in the 14 cor­po­ra­tion dis­tricts across Trinidad.

The EBC con­firmed the num­ber of par­ties and in­de­pen­dents which was al­so stat­ed in yes­ter­day’s Guardian Me­dia re­port–ten con­test­ing par­ties and six in­de­pen­dents.

The EBC stat­ed that the fol­low­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties have field­ed can­di­dates:

• Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ)

• Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA)

• Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP)

• Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP)

• Re-Unit­ed Farm­ers Al­liance

• The Na­tion­al Par­ty (TNP)

• The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)

• Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign (THC)

• Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)

• Uni­ty of The Peo­ple (UTP)  

There will al­so be six in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates in the elec­tion race in the fol­low­ing re­spec­tive elec­toral dis­tricts:

• Bel­mont South–Vi­vian John­son

• Pleas­antville–Dix­ie-Ann El­liot

• Hol­ly­wood–Irvin Samuel Fe­lix

• Ma­yaro South/Guayagua­yare – Kendell Michael Ha­gley

• Va­len­cia West–Gwen­dolyn Alana Charles

• Blan­chisseuse/San­ta Rosa–Kath­leen Wash­ing­ton

The PNM led by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is the on­ly par­ty con­test­ing all 141 seats in all 14 cor­po­ra­tions.

The Op­po­si­tion UNC led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is in an ac­com­mo­da­tion with the NTA led by for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to con­test the 141 seats. This was re­port­ed pre­vi­ous­ly in the TG.

The UNC is con­test­ing seats in all of the 14 cor­po­ra­tions–but not all of the 141 seats. The UNC is con­test­ing 110 seats in the 14 cor­po­ra­tions. The NTA is con­test­ing 31 seats in six cor­po­ra­tions.

The ac­com­mo­da­tion al­lows the UNC to con­test all seats in the South, Cen­tral, and San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tions it holds, as well as all seats in the PNM-con­trolled San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion.

How­ev­er, the NTA and UNC will to­geth­er field seats in six oth­er PNM-held cor­po­ra­tions as fol­lows:

• Port-of-Spain–UNC (6), NTA (6)

• Diego Mar­tin–UNC (2), NTA (8)

• San Juan-Laven­tille–UNC (8), NTA (6)

• Tu­na­puna–UNC (12), NTA (4)

• Ari­ma–UNC (5), NTA( 2)

• Point Fortin–UNC (1), NTA (5)

Grif­fith was part of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s PP Gov­ern­ment as Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter from 2013. He was fired in 2015 fol­low­ing the al­leged wit­ness-tam­per­ing is­sue con­cern­ing then-PP at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty head David West.

The UNC ab­stained from vot­ing for Grif­fith as CoP in 2018 when he was sup­port­ed by the PNM. But af­ter Grif­fith was not re­turned as CoP, the UNC sub­se­quent­ly took up is­sues raised by him and his non-ap­point­ment as COP, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar in 2022 said he should have sought the post again. He ap­plied but was not suc­cess­ful.

The UNC/NTA ac­com­mo­da­tion is be­ing sup­port­ed by oth­er groups which are not con­test­ing in­clud­ing Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress.

PEP, MSJ, PDP, RFA,

UTP, TNP, THC seats

Phillip Alexan­der’s Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) has can­di­dates in the fol­low­ing cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas, par­ty of­fi­cials con­firmed: POS (3), San Fer­nan­do (1), Ari­ma (4), Diego Mar­tin (4), San Juan (5), Princes Town (5), Pe­nal/Debe (9), Point Fortin (6), San­gre Grande (3), Siparia (3), Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co (3), Ma­yaro-Rio Claro (1), Cou­va (1).

PEP of­fi­cials said they were in an al­liance with the Re­unit­ed Farm­ers As­so­ci­a­tion which is con­test­ing seats in Ch­agua­nas and Cou­va. RFA of­fi­cials did not re­ply on their num­ber of seats yes­ter­day.

Wat­son Duke’s Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) is con­test­ing 17 seats—in POS (8), San Juan/Laven­tille (4), San­gre Grande (3), Princes Town (1), and Pe­nal/Debe (1 ).

David Ab­du­lah’s Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice is con­test­ing three seats in Point Fortin

Nick­o­cy Phillips’ Uni­ty of the Peo­ple (UTP) is con­test­ing a San Juan seat.

Al­so field­ing seats are the Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign and The Na­tion­al Par­ty in south Trinidad.

Fol­low­ing Mon­day’s nom­i­na­tion process, cam­paign­ing has moved in­to high gear for the next six weeks, pre-poll.

Af­ter the pre­lim­i­nary vot­ers’ list was is­sued last Tues­day, vot­ers now have un­til to­day to make any elec­tion reg­is­tra­tion-re­lat­ed changes at EBC of­fices. The EBC is ex­pect­ed to is­sue the fi­nal vot­ers’ list next month.