Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion has wel­comed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s move to in­vite both Cari­com and the Com­mon­wealth to send elec­tion ob­servers to Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter yes­ter­day is­sued a state­ment con­firm­ing that Row­ley has in­vit­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of both the re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al group­ings to send elec­tion ob­servers.

This came af­ter Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued her own state­ment on Wednes­day call­ing on Row­ley to have in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers from the Unit­ed Na­tions, Cari­com, the Com­mon­wealth or the Carter Cen­tre for the elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers are an im­por­tant mech­a­nism for en­sur­ing elec­tion in­tegri­ty and she not­ed the role such ob­servers from the in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al com­mu­ni­ty had played in the re­cent Guyana elec­tion. She not­ed Row­ley was among Cari­com ob­servers at the Guyana elec­tion. The Peo­ple’s Pro­gres­sive Par­ty/Civic (PPP) par­ty won in Guyana af­ter pro­tract­ed is­sues in­volv­ing a re­count by the Guyana Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion but the mat­ter is still tied up in the courts as both the PPP and the Part­ner­ship for Na­tion­al Uni­ty (AP­NU) con­test is­sues sur­round­ing the process.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said that with the COVID-19 pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions, the Op­po­si­tion was very con­cerned that mea­sures are not in place to en­sure cit­i­zens are able to ex­er­cise their fran­chise.

Patricia Scotland, QC

Commonwealth Secretariat

Stat­ing that ob­servers had at­tend­ed T&T elec­tions since 2007, she called for ex­emp­tions for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers to be grant­ed as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, so that their quar­an­tine pe­ri­od can be com­plet­ed ahead of the elec­tion. She warned against any de­lay in invit­ing them.

Yes­ter­day, the OPM’s state­ment con­firmed Row­ley yes­ter­day wrote to Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ir­win La Rocque and Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Pa­tri­cia Scot­land, QC.

The OPM stat­ed, “The let­ter for­mal­ly in­vites both par­ties to send elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion mis­sions un­der its aus­pices to ob­serve Trinidad and To­ba­go’s process­es and op­er­a­tions in the up­com­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions which will be held on Au­gust 10, 2020.”

UNC deputy leader David Lee yes­ter­day wel­comed the move by Row­ley.

“It is good news that the Prime Min­is­ter has heed­ed the Op­po­si­tion leader’s call to have in­de­pen­dent ob­servers from Cari­com and the Com­mon­wealth to view the Au­gust 10 elec­tions. This augers well for our elec­tions and hope­ful­ly it would add a lay­er of democ­ra­cy to the whole process on elec­tion day,” Lee said.