Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Reporter

A 7-7 dead­lock! Again!

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress each won sev­en of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions in yes­ter­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion –a stun­ning re­peat of the 2019 LG elec­tion re­sults.

But Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said re­sults for one elec­toral area in the San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tion—which the PNM claimed it’s won—is still out­stand­ing and the UNC will al­so be seek­ing re­counts in oth­er ar­eas.

The PNM lost an area in the San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion but re­tained that cor­po­ra­tion. PNM al­so held its oth­er strong­holds in the East West cor­ri­dor and Point Fortin.

The UNC, which re­tained its South and Cen­tral strong­holds, held San­gre Grande and al­so won an­oth­er seat in that dis­trict. UNC al­so won the two new seats in Ma­yaro South/Guayagua­yare and Cou­va West Roys­to­nia.

Speak­ing at PNM’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain—to which the par­ty re­turned yes­ter­day af­ter a four-year ab­sence—af­ter the re­sults were an­nounced, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the PNM had won sev­en of the cor­po­ra­tions.

Row­ley said, “In the mid­dle of our sec­ond term, we in the PNM are very hap­py that we’ve per­formed.”

He was drowned out by clap­ping and cheers.

Row­ley added, “Notwith­stand­ing the re­lent­less bar­rage of hope­less­ness and anger and what­ev­er else, we went in with sev­en ar­eas and we have come out with sev­en!”

“Well done!” some PN­Mites around him again shout­ed.

“We’re quite hap­py not to have been de­feat­ed and not lost ground in the mid­dle of our sec­ond term … Come let us build a na­tion,” Row­ley urged cit­i­zens.

Row­ley said the PNM lost a San Fer­nan­do seat by a few votes and al­most breast­ed the tape in very many seats by a few votes. But he said most im­por­tant­ly, the PNM re­tained the San Fer­nan­do bat­tle­ground.

He not­ed the PNM fought very hard in San­gre Grand but didn’t get over the line. The PNM won PoS, Diego Mar­tin, San Juan/Laven­tille, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, Ari­ma, San Fer­nan­do and Point Fortin cor­po­ra­tions.

Row­ley de­tailed the ar­eas where PNM had won, al­so speak­ing about a Princes Town seat where the par­ty did well.

Al­so cit­ing PNM’s win in Ari­ma and all seats in Point Fortin, he dis­missed al­leged fig­ures for the NTA in Diego Mar­tin, stress­ing PNM won all Diego Mar­tin ar­eas. Row­ley said the PNM is now mov­ing on to the next gen­er­al elec­tion. (See page 5)

UNC will seek re­counts —Kam­la

Op­po­si­tion leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who spoke from UNC’s Ch­agua­nas head of­fice at 10.55 pm, said “In spite of all the PNM has spent, we have done so well! The ac­com­mo­da­tion with the NTA gave the PNM a run for their mon­ey!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC in­creased San­gre Grande seats—now with six out of the eight—and al­so has four seats in San Fer­nan­do. She said the UNC got back the Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la seat which ex-UNC coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­har­rie con­test­ed for the PNM.

She gave oth­er de­tails of UNC’s vic­to­ry and in­creased ground: Ch­agua­nas (sev­en of the eight seats), Cou­va (all 15 seats) Ma­yaro (six of the sev­en seats), Pe­nal/Debe (all 10), Siparia six of the nine seats and in­roads in PNM ar­eas), Princes Town (nine of 10).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in the PNM-con­trolled Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, UNC won five of the 16 seats and made “tremen­dous in­roads” in some PNM ar­eas and one mar­gin was so small UNC mem­bers would re­quest re­counts to­day.

UNC was still await­ing Ari­ma re­sults af­ter win­ning one seat (Ari­ma North East) and los­ing one seat by nine votes, which would al­so be chal­lenged. She said UNC re­tained two seats in San Juan/Laven­tille.

“In Diego Mar­tin we made tremen­dous in­roads and should re­tain one al­der­man. In Port-of-Spain—I don’t have the fig­ures for that...but the PNM lost votes in al­most all ar­eas in Trinidad and we gained in PNM ar­eas with close mar­gins,” she added

The UNC was al­so pro­ject­ed to have won the pop­u­lar votes.

No dis­tricts for NTA, oth­er par­ties

The NTA did not win any of the 31 dis­tricts which it con­test­ed in PoS, Diego Mar­tin and oth­er lo­ca­tions.

Al­so scor­ing nil were oth­er con­tes­tants: the PEP, Re­unit­ed Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion, PDP, MSJ, Uni­ty of the Peo­ple, Trinidad Hu­man­i­ties Cam­paign, The Na­tion­al Par­ty and the six in­de­pen­dents.

The elec­torate for yes­ter­day’s LG elec­tion was 1,091,936—high­er than in 2019 elec­torate of 1,079, 976. Some 13,284 spe­cial elec­tors cast their bal­lots from Au­gust 7 to last Sun­day.

There was no of­fi­cial turnout fig­ure last night.

UN Sen­a­tor Wade Mark queried if the turnout was un­der 40 per cent. The 2019 turnout was 34.49 per cent. The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion is ex­pect­ed to give the turnout with pre­lim­i­nary re­sults.

Grif­fith —NTA now T&T’s ma­jor third force

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith dis­missed PM Row­ley’s state­ments, point­ing out that the NTA’s votes had cut in­to the PNM—and PNM won by less in var­i­ous ar­eas. Grif­fith said the NTA had now be­come a force to be reck­oned with and the ma­jor third force in T&T.

He said there was no rea­son for the NTA and UNC to have had an ac­com­mo­da­tion with­out look­ing down the road to gen­er­al elec­tion. He said it wasn’t about the UNC on­ly, as the NTA will write oth­er par­ties al­so.