Gail Alexan­der

Two months af­ter the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion, T&T will re­turn to the polls for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions on Ju­ly 26, ac­cord­ing to a de­c­la­ra­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at yes­ter­day's start of the par­lia­men­tary term. In an ad­dress cli­max­ing yes­ter­day's cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the Tenth Par­lia­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I promised dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign we'd hold long over­due lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions soon af­ter we took of­fice and it is, there­fore, fit­ting that my first act and state­ment as Prime Min­is­ter here in Par­lia­ment be a ful­fill­ment of that pledge and reaf­fir­ma­tion of the Gov­ern­ment's com­mit­ted to democ­ra­cy.

"In this con­text, I wish to ad­vise it is my in­ten­tion that lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions will be held on 26th Ju­ly, 2010," she added.

Much in the same way Per­sad Bisses­sar start­ed off her own tenure with na­tion­al chores on May 26, she launched yes­ter­day's new term im­me­di­ate­ly with busi­ness by an­nounc­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls, which are four years over­due. The Par­lia­ment fur­ther buck­led down to busi­ness, with lay­ing of leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for a new po­lice com­mis­sion­er and three deputy com­mis­sion­ers. Two of the pro­posed se­nior of­fi­cers are for­eign­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ad­dress to the Par­lia­ment came in a de­par­ture from tra­di­tion, since state­ments have not nor­mal­ly been made by Prime Min­is­ters at the open­ing of a new term, Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials con­firmed yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ad­dress came af­ter mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers were sworn in and af­ter Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards al­so ad­dressed a joint ses­sion of both Hous­es. For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, seat­ed as the last PNM MP in the line of seats, was al­so the fi­nal of the 41 MPs to take the oath of of­fice. Man­ning was the on­ly MP who did not shake Per­sad-BIsses­sar's hand, as oth­er PNM MPs did af­ter they were sworn in. In­stead, Man­ning lift­ed his hand in a slight wave as he passed the Gov­ern­ment MPs.

Man­ning, who main­tained a pen­sive, dis­tant mood through­out the func­tion, de­clined to be in­ter­viewed af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny. He stayed on­ly briefly at the sub­se­quent so­cial func­tion. Dur­ing his stay, Man­ning nod­ded and smiled briefly with some peo­ple. On ar­riv­ing, Man­ning shook hands with his suc­ces­sor, PNM po­lit­i­cal leader-des­ig­nate and Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley. Al­so shak­ing hands with Row­ley and shar­ing a long con­ver­sa­tion with him was for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day. PNM MP Don­na Cox went over to shake Row­ley's hand first, be­fore shak­ings hands with Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er Gov­ern­ment mem­bers. Af­ter for­mal­i­ties were com­plet­ed at the end of the cer­e­mo­ny, Per­sad-Bisses­sar–dressed in a turquoise suit–ad­dressed the gath­er­ing say­ing the gov­ern­ment's sole pri­or­i­ty was to serve the peo­ple.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "The hold­ing of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions so soon af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tions is a sit­u­a­tion we have in­her­it­ed...The life of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies ex­pires on Ju­ly 13. "My Gov­ern­ment in­tends to re­spect the rights of cit­i­zens to choose lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion when elec­tions are due," she said. "Lo­cal gov­ern­ment is too im­por­tant an in­sti­tu­tion to be de­ferred. "Lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions will be called us­ing the ex­ist­ing law, fol­low­ing which mech­a­nisms will be im­ple­ment­ed to ef­fect fur­ther change. "Lo­cal gov­ern­ment will al­so be re­viewed and im­ple­ment­ed and lo­cal gov­ern­ment will al­so re­ceive pro­tec­tion in the Con­sti­tu­tion." Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter, Per­sad- Bisses­sar ex­plained the de­ci­sion. "Au­gust is the month of school va­ca­tion and Sep­tem­ber is bud­get month and I did not want to wait all the way un­til the last week of Oc­to­ber," she said.

"In the in­ter­est of democ­ra­cy, let us have the elec­tions and let the peo­ple de­cide who their rep­re­sen­ta­tives are. "It has been de­layed for four years al­ready and there is no way to ex­tend the life of the coun­cils again." Asked by the Guardian about the per­cep­tion that the PP Gov­ern­ment was mak­ing a strate­gic strike by call­ing the polls while the Op­po­si­tion PNM was still re­group­ing af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I think the true pur­pose is to have the peo­ple choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives in ac­cor­dance with the law..." But Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert told re­porters that the law re­gard­ing call­ing the polls was am­bigu­ous. He said: "I asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to check it. As far as I know, the life of the coun­cils has to ex­pire be­fore call­ing the elec­tion and there is a pre­scribed pe­ri­od of no­tice as well–at least a month. But the sec­tion in law is am­bigu­ous.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley, asked by the Guardian whether the PNM was ready for the polls, said: "The call­ing of the polls wasn't en­tire­ly un­ex­pect­ed. We have to do the most we can in the time frame. It's po­lit­i­cal­ly bet­ter for them to bring a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion than a bud­get. But the par­ty (PNM) will re­spond as is re­quired. "In­ter­nal mat­ters will not be in the way be­cause even be­fore that the par­ty will re­spond," he added. For­mer PM Pan­day said the call­ing of the polls was a good thing since it had been de­layed so many times. The House meets again next Fri­day.

PM: I wasn't of­fend­ed

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she was not of­fend­ed by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning's re­fusal to shake her hand af­ter he took the oath of of­fice as an MP. She said: "I went over and shook Mr Man­ning's hand and those of oth­er PNM MPs be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny, so maybe he thought there was enough hand­shak­ing for the evening... but I wasn't of­fend­ed by his ac­tion. "I see ab­solute­ly noth­ing wrong with it, be­cause we did shake hands al­ready when I en­tered the cham­ber," she added. Per­sad- Bisses­sar, in her ad­dress to Par­lia­ment, an­nounced that the PP Gov­ern­ment was re­vers­ing the past PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion's at­tempt to re­lo­cate the Par­lia­ment.

She said the Red House would re­main the seat of Par­lia­ment.