KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

While both Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion are gear­ing up for the gen­er­al elec­tions, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are telling cit­i­zens not to get too ex­cit­ed, since the elec­tion may not be any time soon.

Dr Shane Mo­hammed and Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said yes­ter­day that they don’t be­lieve Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is ready to ring the elec­tion bell.

While Row­ley has the au­thor­i­ty to call an elec­tion any time he choos­es, he legal­ly has un­til De­cem­ber 2025 to do so.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via Zoom, Mo­hammed said a snap elec­tion is out of the ques­tion be­cause nei­ther Gov­ern­ment nor the Op­po­si­tion are pre­pared to go to the polls. And if the elec­tion bell is rung be­fore its time, it could be dis­as­trous for cit­i­zens.

“I don’t be­lieve a snap elec­tion that has been cir­cu­lat­ed over time is go­ing to hap­pen. I think there’s a lot that the Gov­ern­ment needs to achieve in terms of its key de­liv­er­ables. There’s not any time soon that we could look for­ward to a gen­er­al elec­tion be­fore 2025 and I say that on the premise that one, the Gov­ern­ment is not as pop­u­lar as it ought to be at this stage in its gov­er­nance,” Mo­hammed said.

Dr Ra­goonath said he is al­so not con­vinced the Prime Min­is­ter is ready.

Speak­ing via a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ra­goonath said Row­ley’s lat­est pub­lic talks, where he con­demned the Op­po­si­tion for in­volv­ing re­gion­al politi­cians in T&T’s busi­ness, may have been be­cause he was sur­prised by the amount of trac­tion the UNC’s an­ti-crime talks re­ceived.

“I am not con­vinced that he is yet ready to move in that di­rec­tion…I think that the Prime Min­is­ter prob­a­bly would have been tak­en some­what aback by the re­sponse the UNC has been get­ting by their crime talks af­ter he sug­gest­ed that it was just old talk. I think he has been tak­en by sur­prise and now he has to re­spond, so hence his tak­ing to his Con­ver­sa­tions so that he re­sponds.

“But more im­por­tant­ly this would in­crease the po­lit­i­cal tem­po in the coun­try. And I think that’s ba­si­cal­ly where we’re head­ing. But, as to whether we’ve reached that stage where an elec­tion date is im­mi­nent, no I don’t think we’ve reached there yet,” Ra­goonath said.