Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­quest­ed an ob­serv­er team from the Com­mon­wealth for the up­com­ing Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion.

The PM made the re­quest yes­ter­day dur­ing the 36th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos.

Heads of Gov­ern­ment met with Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ka­malesh Shar­ma, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

The PM's re­quest comes on the heels of a sim­i­lar, re­cent one by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­quest­ing Cari­com ob­servers.

Row­ley told sup­port­ers at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing he in­tend­ed to call on Cari­com to pro­vide "in­vig­i­la­tors" for the gen­er­al elec­tion.

He claimed that the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment has, in its five years in of­fice, in­ter­fered with a num­ber of state in­sti­tu­tions.

PNM chair­man Franklin Khan said yes­ter­day the par­ty in­tends to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion from Cari­com on a state­ment al­leged­ly made by its Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ir­win LaRocque, in a me­dia re­port ,that Cari­com can on­ly send an ob­serv­er mis­sion to this coun­try if it was re­quest­ed by their Gov­ern­ment.

He spoke dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at the par­ty's head­quar­ters, bal­isi­er House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Khan said that mat­ter must be clar­i­fied as in most na­tions it would be the Op­po­si­tion par­ty which would seek in­ter­na­tion­al ob­serv­er mis­sions to mon­i­tor elec­tions.

The EBC said ob­servers had been present for a num­ber of T&T elec­tions over the years.

In 2000, the Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group came to mon­i­tor T&T's elec­tion. And in 2001, 2007 and 2010, the Cari­com Elec­toral Ob­serv­er Mis­sion was present.

The EBC said it could not be po­lit­i­cal­ly ma­nip­u­lat­ed and wel­comed such ob­servers.

At the Cari­com con­fer­ence in Bridgetown, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said an of­fi­cial re­quest would be made for ob­servers for the Sep­tem­ber 7 elec­tion lat­er this year, in ac­cor­dance with es­tab­lished pro­to­cols, through the EBC.

When the re­quest is re­ceived, the Com­mon­wealth will de­ploy an as­sess­ment mis­sion be­fore for­mal­ly ac­cept­ing.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the last time a Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er Group vis­it­ed T&T was in 2000 and a great deal of valu­able as­sess­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions came out of its fi­nal re­port.

She said the work done by Com­mon­wealth Ob­servers dur­ing Guyana's elec­tions in May was ex­em­plary.

Sup­port for Guyana

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has af­firmed her sup­port for Guyana in its on­go­ing mar­itime wa­ters dis­pute with Venezuela.

The PM as­sured Guyana's Pres­i­dent David Granger of her gov­ern­ment's sup­port dur­ing the 36th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, yes­ter­day. The Venezuela gov­ern­ment last month pro­claimed a pres­i­den­tial de­cree claim­ing mar­itime wa­ters which en­com­pass Guyana's ex­clu­sive eco­nom­ic zone.

A US ex­plo­ration com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly in the wa­ters in dis­pute re­cent­ly an­nounced it had found min­er­als on the seabed and in­di­cat­ed there might be large de­posits of oil in the area. At the Cari­com meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke of in­ter­ests T&T shared in com­mon with both Guyana and Venezuela.

She said, how­ev­er, Venezuela's pres­i­den­tial de­cree was a vi­o­la­tion of the in­ter­na­tion­al laws of the sea and ex­pressed sup­port for Guyana's claim.