The gov­ern­ment has asked the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to con­sid­er a name change for three elec­toral seats.

The EBC was asked to con­sid­er re­nam­ing D’Abadie/O’Meara to Mal­abar/O’Meara, Ma­yaro to Rio Claro/Ma­yaro, and Siparia to Pe­nal/Siparia.

“We’ve pre­sent­ed them with our analy­sis and asked them to con­sid­er a name change and they’ll come back to us on that,” Min­is­ter Im­bert said.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the EBC on Wednes­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said this was “be­cause the cur­rent names do not re­flect the ge­og­ra­phy of the area”.

The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion re­cent­ly rec­om­mend­ed changes of bound­aries in sev­en Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas, the cre­ation of ad­di­tion­al new elec­toral dis­tricts in two ar­eas and name changes in three oth­ers.

The changes were con­tained in the EBC’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly draft or­der, in­tend­ed for the pur­pose of hold­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls.

People's National Movement (PNM) Chairman and Minister of Finance Colm Imbert exit the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) with Minister of Works and Transport Rohan Sininan after a meeting with the EBC in Port-of-Spain. Photo by Anisto Alves.

Anisto Alves

These are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due this year since cor­po­ra­tions’ three- year term ends in Ju­ly.

Bound­ary changes were rec­om­mend­ed in:

• Bound­aries of three elec­toral dis­tricts in San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion.

• Bound­aries of two elec­toral dis­tricts in Ch­agua­nas Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion.

•Bound­aries of three elec­toral dis­tricts in Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro cor­po­ra­tion.

• Bound­aries of eight elec­toral dis­tricts in Pe­nal /Debe re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

•Bound­aries of three elec­toral dis­tricts of San­gre Grande cor­po­ra­tion.

• Bound­aries of nine elec­toral dis­tricts in San Juan -Laven­tille cor­po­ra­tion

• Bound­aries of two elec­toral dis­tricts of Siparia re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion.

The PNM holds the cor­po­ra­tions of San Fer­nan­do, San Juan Laven­tille and con­trols San­gre Grande af­ter UNC and PNM tied there in 2016 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls.

The UNC holds the Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Pe­nal/Debe and Siparia cor­po­ra­tions.

PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Sat­ur­day called for nom­i­na­tions for St Au­gus­tine, Point-a-Pierre, To­co/Man­zanil­la, Barataria/ San Juan, and Ch­agua­nas East gen­er­al elec­tion seats which are mar­gin­als.

Con­stituen­cy nom­i­na­tions would be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly and end in Ju­ly 12.