JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Monday, February 24, 2025

T&T goes to polls in 38 days

by

20100416

T&T will go to the polls to elect a new Gov­ern­ment in 38 days, on Mon­day May 24, 2010. This, as Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's of­fice is­sued a two-para­graph re­lease an­nounc­ing the elec­tion date short­ly af­ter noon yes­ter­day. It is be­ing held more than two years ear­li­er than it was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in 2012. The last time Man­ning called an ear­ly elec­tion, in 1995, the PNM lost the Gov­ern­ment to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, then led by Bas­deo Pan­day. Yes­ter­day's an­nounce­ment end­ed wide­spread spec­u­la­tion about, and in­creas­ing calls for, the 2010 elec­tion date. "Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning to­day ad­vised Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to is­sue a writ of elec­tion, ap­point­ing Mon­day 24, May 2010 as the date of the gen­er­al elec­tion. Nom­i­na­tion Day is Mon­day 3, May 2010," the re­lease said. It added: "On April 8, 2010, Patrick Man­ning, Prime Min­is­ter, ad­vised His Ex­cel­len­cy George Maxwell Richards, Pres­i­dent, to dis­solve Par­lia­ment in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 68 of the Con­sti­tu­tion."

On pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions the elec­tion date was an­nounced in Par­lia­ment, a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence or at a par­ty fo­rum. It was an un­prece­dent­ed de­vel­op­ment, as sources said it was the first time in the T&T's his­to­ry an elec­tion date was an­nounced more than a week af­ter the Par­lia­ment was dis­solved. Many were ex­pect­ing Man­ning (as he did in pre­vi­ous years) to pull the date out of his back pock­et. Man­ning's PNM won 26 of the 41 seats in the last gen­er­al elec­tion on No­vem­ber 5, 2007. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), un­der for­mer leader Bas­deo Pan­day, won the re­main­ing 15 seats. Man­ning said ear­li­er in the week he de­cid­ed to keep the date to him­self be­cause in 1995 when a date for the then snap elec­tion was de­cid­ed, it was leaked to UNC of­fi­cials. Man­ning said that breach re­sult­ed in the UNC be­ing bet­ter pre­pared. Mean­while, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), which is charged with the con­duct of the polls, said it was ready for the elec­tion.

Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Howard Cayenne said more than one mil­lion cit­i­zens have been reg­is­tered to vote. He said the pe­ri­od of vot­er reg­is­tra­tion runs un­til next Tues­day. The EBC is­sued a re­lease short­ly af­ter the elec­tion date was an­nounced call­ing for peo­ple in­ter­est­ed in work­ing for the elec­tion to ap­ply. It said it want­ed pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers, deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers, poll clerks and in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cers. The EBC said suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants would be em­ployed on the ba­sis of sat­is­fac­to­ry at­ten­dance and suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the train­ing pro­gramme. Man­ning pre­vi­ous­ly said he called the ear­ly polls to avert a move by Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­bate in Par­lia­ment last week Fri­day a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in him. Man­ning said he was in­formed that many slan­der­ous re­marks were ex­pect­ed to be made un­der the cloak of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored