Gail Alexan­der

The rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has sig­nalled that lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions are im­mi­nent.

The par­ty opened nom­i­na­tions for lo­cal gov­ern­ment can­di­dates on Tues­day. On Wednes­day night, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) al­so an­nounced that it will soon start screen­ing nom­i­nees.

Last No­vem­ber, when Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi spoke on the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Re­form Bill ex­tend­ing the term of lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies be­yond De­cem­ber 3, 2022, he said the elec­tions were due by mid-March 2024 at the lat­est.

In a state­ment on Wednes­day night, the PNM said its Gen­er­al Coun­cil met on Mon­day when leader Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of­fi­cial­ly “is­sued a call for nom­i­na­tions for per­sons de­sirous of of­fer­ing them­selves to be con­sid­ered as PNM can­di­dates for the im­mi­nent Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.”

This has trig­gered spec­u­la­tion that the polls will be held soon. Elec­tions will be held in 141 seats in the 14 mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties across Trinidad. Seats were in­creased by two ac­cord­ing to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s 10th Re­port which was ap­proved by Par­lia­ment in Feb­ru­ary.

The PNM’s nom­i­na­tion process opened on Tues­day and will con­tin­ue un­til June 2. Screen­ing will be­gin short­ly af­ter for all seats. Nom­i­na­tion forms are avail­able from con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives and the PNM’s Cen­tral Re­gion­al Of­fice.

Row­ley said the PNM is de­ter­mined to im­prove the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sys­tem and “we look for­ward to the new sys­tem of lo­cal gov­ern­ment with the re­form in the new term.”

Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, who pi­lot­ed the EBC re­port in Par­lia­ment, said its adop­tion would clear the way for an elec­tion. He said he ex­pect­ed “an elec­tion will be held, but not be­fore it’s due.”

The UNC has had lo­cal gov­ern­ment nom­i­nees in hand since last year when the polls were ex­pect­ed. At last Sun­day’s UNC an­niver­sary ser­vice, po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that the par­ty will start screen­ings soon. De­tails on dates are ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced at the UNC’s Mon­day Night Re­port in Fyz­abad on Mon­day, par­ty of­fi­cials said.

The UNC is await­ing a Privy Coun­cil rul­ing on its ap­peal af­ter it un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment term.

The PNM and UNC each con­trol sev­en of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and each will be vy­ing to break that tie, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions, which are con­sid­ered mar­gin­al.

Ac­cord­ing to the EBC re­port, along with the two new seats in the UNC-con­trolled Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro and Rio Claro/Ma­yaro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions, there are changes to the names of five elec­toral dis­tricts with­in these elec­toral ar­eas and 22 bound­ary changes.

The new seats are Cou­va West/Roys­to­nia and Ma­yaro North. The elec­toral dis­trict of Bal­main/Cal­cut­ta No 2 was re­named Cou­va East/Bal­main. Cal­i­for­nia/Point Lisas was re­named Savonet­ta/Point Lisas, Car­li Bay/Cal­cut­ta No 3/Mc Bean was re­named Cal­cut­ta No 3/ Mc Bean, Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare was re­named Ma­yaro South/Guayagua­yare, Rio Claro South/Cat’s Hill was re­named Rio Claro South.

The 22 bound­ary changes are in Ch­agua­nas, Point Fortin, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Pe­nal/Debe, Siparia and Rio Claro/Ma­yaro. Al­ter­ations in the 22 ar­eas in­volve four bound­aries with­in the mu­nic­i­pal elec­toral area of Ch­agua­nas, two with­in Point Fortin, eight in Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, four in Ma­yaro/Rio Claro, two in Siparia and two in Pe­nal/Debe. The elec­tion will be held with new bor­oughs, Siparia and Diego Mar­tin.