Ken Ali

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day did trump and fol­low-suit in re­sound­ing­ly win­ning the lo­cal gov­ern­ment poll af­ter her em­phat­ic gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry two months ear­li­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar led her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) po­lit­i­cal group­ing to de­ci­sive vic­to­ries in 11 of the 14 cor­po­ra­tions in Trinidad. In the process, the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was con­fined to its strong­holds of Port-of Spain, San Juan-Laven­tille and Point Fortin, though the par­ty sur­ren­dered elec­toral dis­tricts in the three com­mu­ni­ties. PP snatched the sec­ond city of San Fer­nan­do and the bor­ough of Ari­ma, two pre­vi­ous­ly en­trenched PNM re­gions. Af­ter the 2003 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions the PNM had se­cured nine of the 14 re­gion­al bod­ies.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so copped the largest lo­cal gov­ern­ment body, Tu­na­puna-Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where it pre­vi­ous­ly had a mi­nor­i­ty pres­ence. Ma­yaro-Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where there was pre­vi­ous­ly a 3-3 dead­lock, was white­washed by PP. �PP al­so won the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, which had been mo­nop­o­lised by the PNM. San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, which was al­so pre­vi­ous­ly dom­i­nat­ed by PNM, was se­cured by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. She al­so pre­vailed at her home-base Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, where the PNM had held a 5-3 ma­jor­i­ty.

PP dom­i­nat­ed in the strong­holds of Cou­va-Tabaquite-Tal­paro, Princes Town and Pe­nal-Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tions. De­spite loss­es of elec­toral dis­tricts at En­ter­prise, Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship pre­vailed at Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, its lo­cal gov­ern­ment pearl. A tri­umphant Per­sad-Bisses­sar termed the suc­cess the com­ple­tion of the "cir­cle of vic­to­ry." Win­ston Dook­er­an, leader of PP part­ner, Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), cred­it­ed his par­ty for its "mag­ic", say­ing it was "un­der­val­ued by many."

�Dook­er­an said: "Un­der the ban­ner of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, we have con­quered new places." He placed high pre­mi­um on the vic­to­ry at Ari­ma, for which he shared praise with Deputy COP Leader Wendy Lee Yuen. �He said Tu­na­puna was an ex­am­ple of how well the PP was work­ing. A crest­fall­en PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley ac­knowl­edged that his par­ty was "com­pre­hen­sive­ly" beat­en in the polls.

PNM's Bal­isi­er House head of­fice had an al­most som­bre out­look, in sharp con­trast to the cel­e­bra­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ties at the UNC and COP head­quar­ters. John Ra­hael, who man­aged the PNM's elec­toral cam­paign, was thrilled at the par­ty's suc­cess­es at Port-of-Spain and San Juan-Laven­tille.He said PP was still en­joy­ing the hon­ey­moon of its gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry. �Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma said the PP's suc­cess­es were the re­sult of the Prime Min­is­ter's mantra of "ser­vice to the peo­ple." Shar­ma said: "Peo­ple felt the de­nial of goods and ser­vices un­der the PNM and they said enough is enough."

He al­so claimed that the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had made "hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars" avail­able to spe­cial pur­pose com­pa­nies, while with­hold­ing funds from lo­cal gov­ern­ment bod­ies.