Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions are months away, and the Gov­ern­ment’s bill to change lo­cal gov­ern­ment arrange­ments will not post­pone them, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said yes­ter­day.

“This bill is his­to­ry in the mak­ing,” Ameen said as she pi­lot­ed the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Bill, 2026, in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Ameen de­scribed the bill as fair, pro­por­tion­ate and eq­ui­table.

“It cor­rects 34 years of PNM-im­posed ger­ry­man­der­ing. It re­turns a de­gree of eq­ui­ty, ra­tio­nale and log­ic. In 1992, the PNM im­posed bound­aries to en­sure it would win. We’re not chang­ing these bound­aries for the UNC to win, as the PNM is say­ing. We’re re­turn­ing fair­ness and eq­ui­ty, bring­ing Gov­ern­ment clos­er to the peo­ple,” she said.

“The po­lit­i­cal im­po­si­tion that forced this coun­try to look at a map of Trinidad and see three-quar­ters yel­low and one-quar­ter red and be told that is 7-7 must not hap­pen again!”

The bill re­quires a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty to pass.

Ameen said it would come in­to force by procla­ma­tion. The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) would then have 90 days to sub­mit a de­lim­i­ta­tion re­port.

“Elec­tions on the new bound­aries will fol­low when the nec­es­sary or­der is made. This bill does not post­pone Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions,” she said.

Ameen not­ed that, for the 2021 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, the EBC had 90 days to ad­just the bound­aries and was ready with­in a short time.

“They re­con­fig­ured the bound­aries, changed polling di­vi­sions and sta­tions, and did all that was nec­es­sary to have the THA elec­tions con­duct­ed with­in 90 days of the PNM gov­ern­ment bring­ing that bill to Par­lia­ment,” she said.

“We’re months away from an elec­tion. I have no doubt the EBC will be proac­tive, as this bill is in the pub­lic do­main.”

Ameen said it was not un­usu­al for the EBC to re­ceive ad­di­tion­al staff, fund­ing and oth­er re­sources dur­ing pe­ri­ods of height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty, usu­al­ly ahead of gen­er­al, THA or Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

“They hire and train ad­di­tion­al staff and set up re­turn­ing of­fi­cers’ ac­com­mo­da­tion. So there’s am­ple time for that to hap­pen,” she said.

Ameen said the bill had been 14 months in prepa­ra­tion, in­volv­ing a Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed com­mit­tee, an in­de­pen­dent as­sess­ment and Cab­i­net. The EBC’s de­tailed de­lim­i­ta­tion or­der would re­turn to the House be­fore any votes were cast un­der the new bound­aries, she said.

“And let me be clear. This bill doesn’t re­move the EBC’s statu­to­ry role. Par­lia­ment has the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to treat with the mu­nic­i­pal struc­ture. But the EBC con­tin­ues to ex­er­cise its statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in re­la­tion to elec­toral dis­tricts.

“The bill it­self gives the EBC spe­cif­ic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in re­la­tion to al­der­men and the elec­toral arrange­ments that fol­low these re­forms. This bill doesn’t in­ter­fere with the EBC’s in­de­pen­dence and statu­to­ry role.”

‘Cross the floor’ clause

Ex­plain­ing the bill’s claus­es, Ameen said the “cross­ing the floor” pro­vi­sion dealt with va­can­cies aris­ing when a per­son re­signed from, or was ex­pelled by, their po­lit­i­cal par­ty. It would ap­ply to coun­cil­lors elect­ed as par­ty can­di­dates and to al­der­men placed on a par­ty list sub­mit­ted to the EBC.

“The ra­tio­nale is that burgess­es vote for a per­son on a par­ty tick­et, and al­der­men are al­lo­cat­ed based on par­ty votes. A mem­ber who changes sides af­ter the elec­tion al­ters the bal­ance of the coun­cil with­out ref­er­ence to the elec­torate. That isn’t in keep­ing with the spir­it of democ­ra­cy,” she said.

“This amend­ment binds an elect­ed per­son to the elec­torate’s will. You can­not take peo­ple’s vote with a white jack­et and change to a black jack­et af­ter you at­tain of­fice! Or show up at a UNC Christ­mas din­ner and ex­pect no ac­tion to be tak­en!”

Ameen said she be­lieved peo­ple on both sides of the House would wel­come the clause.

“I know peo­ple on both sides of the House will wel­come this clause. Be­cause there are peo­ple in­volved in se­lect­ing coun­cil­lors and al­der­men and rec­om­mend­ing peo­ple, and they’re dis­ap­point­ed … be­cause the elec­torate puts faith and con­fi­dence in peo­ple and then—you know … It’s part of the nat­ur­al ups and downs of pol­i­tics,” she said.

Ac­cus­ing the PNM of ger­ry­man­der­ing, Ameen cit­ed a 1992 PNM Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed team’s re­port on bound­ary changes, which said the Act’s pro­vi­sions “were dis­cussed with­in the frame­work of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment phi­los­o­phy” and the par­ty’s gen­er­al views.

She said the UNC Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed team work­ing on the cur­rent pro­pos­als had held ex­ten­sive con­sul­ta­tions.

“The dead­line was ex­tend­ed three times to ac­com­mo­date may­ors and chair­men of PNM-con­trolled cor­po­ra­tions. None sub­mit­ted cor­re­spon­dence. We have a record of the dates they were in­vit­ed and how many times they post­poned! They said they were await­ing a di­rec­tive from the PNM’s lead­er­ship and had to meet their po­lit­i­cal leader to put to­geth­er views be­fore sub­mit­ting rec­om­men­da­tions. They had an op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­put, but the PNM’s lead­er­ship failed their own mem­bers in hav­ing a say,” she said.