The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots(PDP) will meet on Wednes­day to dis­cuss a tem­po­rary pow­er-shar­ing arrange­ment.

The PDP in­vit­ed the PNM for a face-to-face dis­cus­sion on the way for­ward to gov­ern To­ba­go fol­low­ing the six/six tie in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly(THA) elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 25.

On March 3, Dr Row­ley called a meet­ing of all 12 mem­bers, ask­ing them to get the is­land leg­is­la­ture to func­tion. He said as Prime Min­is­ter, he will not al­low all the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion to con­tin­ue.

It was there that the PDP pro­posed shar­ing gov­er­nance. Since then, the PNM has sent a counter-of­fer to which the PDP replied with an­oth­er of­fer.

Ac­cord­ing to two well-placed sources, both par­ties want to find an am­i­ca­ble, work­able so­lu­tion to get the THA's leg­isla­tive arm func­tion­ing.

It has not func­tioned since De­cem­ber 2020, when the 2017-2020 THA term closed, and elec­tions were called.

The new term did not be­gin on Jan­u­ary 28, 2021, as sched­uled, al­though the 12 as­sem­bly­men were in­au­gu­rat­ed by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes.

De­spite meet­ing three times in the As­sem­bly Cham­ber, they did not agree on a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

As pro­vid­ed by law, the THA's ad­min­is­tra­tive arm con­tin­ues to be con­trolled by the for­mer ma­jor­i­ty group- PNM.

The PDP sug­gest­ed the two par­ties share pow­er un­til the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on the To­ba­go Self Gov­ern­ment Bill com­pletes its work in May and presents its find­ings to Par­lia­ment. The bill re­quires a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty to pass. Once pro­claimed, fresh elec­tions will be­come due au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said.

If the par­ties can­not agree, the amend­ed THA Act, re­cent­ly passed in Par­lia­ment - Feb­ru­ary 17 and March 2, will kick in, trig­ger­ing fresh elec­tions.