Gail Alexan­der

Five-way fights will be tak­ing place in the key mar­gin­al seats of Moru­ga and San Fer­nan­do West for the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion - and four oth­er mar­gin­als will in­volve four-way fights.

The lay of the po­lit­i­cal land was re­vealed in the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s no­tice of tak­ing a poll pub­lished in Tues­day's news­pa­pers.

The EBC stat­ed that 150 can­di­dates from 19 par­ties, plus In­de­pen­dents, are con­test­ing in the 41 seats for the elec­tion.

In Diego Mar­tin West, PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is be­ing chal­lenged by in­de­pen­dent can­di­date David Zafir, MND's Roger Nicholls and UNC's Mar­shal Walk­er. In Siparia, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is fight­ing PNM's Re­bec­ca Dip­nar­ine.

In Moru­ga, con­sid­ered the trump seat by both the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress - the fight will see PNM’s Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters con­test­ing against UNC’s Michelle Ben­jamin, Lar­ry San­char (Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign), Valen­tine Al­varez and Thomas Sotil­lo.

The bat­tle in so-called mar­gin­al San Fer­nan­do West will be a five-way fight among PNM in­cum­bent Faris Al-Rawi and chal­lengers Sean Sobers (UNC), Beni­son Jages­sar (PEP), Pro­gres­sive Par­ty leader Nikoli Ed­wards and the Na­tion­al Par­ty’s Valmi­ki Ram­s­ingh.

Five-way fights are al­so on in Diego Mar­tin North East, Point Fortin, La Brea and St Au­gus­tine.

Laven­tille West and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral have a record six can­di­dates con­test­ing in each seat.

In Laven­tille West, PNM’s Fitzger­ald Hinds is bat­tling UNC’s Rod­ney Stowe, Kirk Wait­he of the NOW par­ty, San­dra Em­manuel, COP’s Matthew Sin­nette and PEP’s Na­talia Moore.

In DM Cen­tral, PNM’s Symon de No­bre­ga is con­test­ing against NNV’s Ash­ton Fran­cis, MND leader Garvin Nicholas, PEP’s Fe­li­cia Hold­er and MSJ’s Re­nee St Rose.

Four-way bat­tles are oc­cur­ring in St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, Ch­agua­nas East and Tu­na­puna as well as Pointe-a-Pierre.

There’s a three-way fight in San Juan/Barataria, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and To­ba­go East.

De­spite the re­cent spike in lo­calised cas­es of COVID-19, the EBC has not made any ad­just­ments to its op­er­a­tions for the elec­tion. But Chief Elec­tions Of­fice Fern Nar­cis-Scope says they are mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

"The com­mis­sion is mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion and will ad­just pro­to­cols as nec­es­sary on­ly up­on the ad­vice and in­struc­tions of the Min­istry of Health," Nar­cis-Scope told Guardian Me­dia.