Akash Sama­roo

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley did not an­nounce an elec­tion date as an­tic­i­pat­ed by the Op­po­si­tion, but he did re­veal there will be Cari­com ob­servers to mon­i­tor the elec­tion when­ev­er it is called.

Yes­ter­day, the Low­er House de­bat­ed the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) 2024 re­port in­to its Re­view of Con­stituen­cy Bound­aries. In the lead-up to the de­bate, the Op­po­si­tion had spec­u­lat­ed that fol­low­ing the ac­cep­tance of the re­port, the elec­tion date would be called.

When Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke dur­ing the de­bate, she cheek­i­ly asked the Prime Min­is­ter, “We will dis­solve to­day or Au­gust (2025)?”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­vealed that she had writ­ten to the Prime Min­is­ter in Sep­tem­ber re­quest­ing there be in­de­pen­dent elec­tion ob­servers when the coun­try re­turns to the polls. How­ev­er, she said she was yet to re­ceive a re­sponse from Row­ley.

But the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed to her in the par­lia­men­tary cham­ber.

“To com­fort her on the way home, be­cause I know at this hour she’s not nor­mal­ly up, at the mo­ment I am wait­ing, I have al­ready giv­en the in­struc­tion, the draft is pre­pared, any minute now it can come in front of me. I have al­ready in­di­cat­ed to the Sec­re­tari­at of Cari­com that the gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is ask­ing Cari­com to send a del­e­ga­tion when­ev­er the elec­tion takes place in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is due to come to me any­time now,” Row­ley an­nounced.

He then went on to ques­tion why the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was ob­sessed with the elec­tion date, giv­en its re­cent track record at the polls.

“My col­league has called for elec­tion nine times and lost all nine times, al­ways call­ing for elec­tions. Madame Speak­er, what do you call a per­son who likes licks?” the Prime Min­is­ter asked the House Speak­er while his MPs sought to con­tain their laugh­ter.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert sug­gest­ed “bobolee” and a “sado­masochist.”

“That has to be some kind of fetish,” the Prime Min­is­ter added.

Row­ley al­so told the House he re­ceived rec­om­men­da­tions for ob­servers from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “un­der­lings.”

“A list of all kinds of Tom, Dick and Har­ry from Tim­buk­tu, I am not invit­ing them here, I don’t know who they are,” he said.

The PM said he was cer­tain Cari­com would send a del­e­ga­tion.

“Be­cause we have noth­ing to hide!” he de­clared as his fel­low MPs thumped their desks in ap­proval.

Mean­while, the EBC’s re­port was ac­cept­ed with­out amend­ments al­though Row­ley had reser­va­tions with two con­stituen­cies.

The re­port rec­om­mends bound­ary changes to 16 con­stituen­cies to fa­cil­i­tate its law­ful quo­ta for min­i­mum and max­i­mum vot­ers in each con­stituen­cy. It al­so pro­posed name changes to five con­stituen­cies.

But Row­ley in­stead fo­cused on a con­stituen­cy un­touched by the re­port. Us­ing the EBC’s ra­tio­nale for re­nam­ing St Joseph, he asked why that same think­ing was not ap­plied to Ma­yaro.

“Here it is the EBC is say­ing to us that they added the name Aranguez o to St Joseph be­cause 21 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion is in Aranguez. But the EBC res­olute­ly re­fus­es to name the con­stituen­cy Ma­yaro/Rio Claro when it is ob­vi­ous that is what it is. And I’m sure Rio Claro con­tributes more than 21 per cent to the Ma­yaro seat,” Row­ley sug­gest­ed.

He said his Gov­ern­ment made this rec­om­men­da­tion twice since 2020 but the EBC has not ac­cept­ed it.

Row­ley al­so ques­tioned why the Pointe-a-Pierre con­stituen­cy had to be re­named Clax­ton Bay when on­ly one polling di­vi­sion from the lat­ter was moved in­to Pointe-a-Pierre dur­ing the bound­ary changes.

He in­formed the Par­lia­ment that it had the pow­er to make amend­ments.

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no in­ter­est in do­ing so. She said the Prime Min­is­ter had the EBC’s re­port in hand since March.

“Nine months lat­er, we are now here and the Prime Min­is­ter is ask­ing us to amend this re­port with­out the due process man­dat­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion. I am say­ing we will say no, we will not come here ad-hoc, on the foot to amend any re­port,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

How­ev­er, both lead­ers found com­mon ground on one is­sue - the ac­cu­ra­cy of the EBC’s vot­ing list.

“In 2023, the EBC em­barked up­on a na­tion­al field ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise. This be­gan last year and you know some­thing, we have not had an ex­er­cise like this in 22 years, the last field ex­er­cise was 2001. And we are deal­ing with da­ta that de­ter­mines elec­tions and democ­ra­cy and the last one was 22 years ago,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so ex­pressed con­cern with the “clean­li­ness” of the vot­er’s list. He said the EBC is mov­ing too slow­ly in strik­ing off peo­ple from the list who have died.

“We need to have a se­ri­ous con­ver­sa­tion with the EBC on the whole ques­tion of how this list is cleaned up be­cause if in 2000, 100,000 peo­ple came off, be­tween then and now, is it pos­si­ble an­oth­er few tens of thou­sands should not be on the list?” the Prime Min­is­ter ques­tioned.

“And as peo­ple move around the coun­try, or as pop­u­la­tions grow, the EBC has the re­quire­ment to un­der­stand that, to know that and ap­ply it to the for­mu­la and the list. That’s what the EBC ex­ists to do, the ques­tion is, is it be­ing done? And if the com­mis­sion is tak­ing the po­si­tion of an­ces­tral vot­ing, then it is mak­ing a non­sense of want­i­ng to know who is where and how they fall as con­stituen­cies.”