With spec­u­la­tion grow­ing over the tim­ing of the next gen­er­al elec­tion, two po­lit­i­cal par­ties have re­newed calls for a fixed elec­tion date.

This ap­peal echoed across var­i­ous sec­tors through­out the years, aligns with a key rec­om­men­da­tion in the re­port from the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, which was pre­sent­ed to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Au­gust 2.

In T&T, a gen­er­al elec­tion must be held at least every five years, but the tim­ing is oth­er­wise at the dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter. The coun­try must re­ceive at least 35 days’ no­tice, and elec­tions must be held with­in 90 days of Par­lia­ment’s dis­so­lu­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the an­nu­al bud­get, due by the end of Oc­to­ber, is an­oth­er con­sid­er­a­tion when se­lect­ing a date.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley via What­sApp to ask for his re­sponse on calls for a fixed elec­tion date or any in­sight in­to the tim­ing of the polls, he did not re­ply.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Leader Gary Grif­fith, in an in­ter­view, said his par­ty was prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a snap elec­tion.

“We are an­tic­i­pat­ing and prepar­ing for Jan­u­ary,” Grif­fith said. “Most prob­a­bly, that would not be the case. Most prob­a­bly, it will be af­ter Car­ni­val. You heard ini­tial­ly it was De­cem­ber; then you’re hear­ing Jan­u­ary, you’re hear­ing April, you’re hear­ing May, you’re hear­ing he will go down to Au­gust, we don’t know.”

Grif­fith em­pha­sised that the NTA would not wait un­til the elec­tion an­nounce­ment to or­gan­ise; the par­ty plans to present po­ten­tial can­di­dates at a me­dia con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day. He al­so crit­i­cised the cur­rent prac­tice of leav­ing the elec­tion date to the Prime Min­is­ter, call­ing it out­dat­ed.

“This (idea of) hav­ing the date in your back pock­et—it has be­come a joke, but it is a sick joke, and you have the whole coun­try won­der­ing, wait­ing, and try­ing to come up with an as­sump­tion when one per­son out of 1.4 mil­lion is the on­ly per­son that will know the date for the elec­tion.”

He re­called that the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion, of which he was a part, promised to set fixed elec­tion dates but failed to do so dur­ing its term from 2010 to 2015. Grif­fith added that he has no in­ter­est in the in­ter­nal con­flicts with­in the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) or the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

“I’m not go­ing to spend too much time wor­ry­ing about the plans and the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of what is go­ing on in­ter­nal­ly of the PNM and the UNC. What I think is very in­ter­est­ing and an im­por­tant point is that if you’re a po­lit­i­cal leader and you’re hav­ing prob­lems to unite your own po­lit­i­cal par­ty, how can you ex­pect the coun­try to be­lieve that you can unite a coun­try?” he not­ed.

Hope leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith spec­u­lat­ed that the elec­tion could be sched­uled be­tween Au­gust and No­vem­ber, though May or June re­mains a pos­si­bil­i­ty. Un­like Grif­fith, Hamel-Smith said Hope does not plan to con­test all 41 seats and will con­sult with pro­fes­sion­als to de­ter­mine their path for­ward.

“I am in favour of a fixed elec­tion date, which will bring cer­tain­ty to many things. Along with oth­er things, a Prime Min­is­ter be­ing lim­it­ed to two terms will serve the coun­try much bet­ter,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought com­ments from oth­er par­ty lead­ers, in­clud­ing Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty, Far­ley Au­gus­tine of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty, and Wat­son Duke of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots, but they did not re­spond.