SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley last night put a pos­i­tive spin on the PNM’s per­for­mance in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. Speak­ing to sup­port­ers at the par­ty’s Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters af­ter the re­sult showed a 7-7 tie for the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, he de­clared that the par­ty had won the most seats, cap­tur­ing 71 of the 139 elec­toral dis­tricts.

How­ev­er, in the two mar­gin­al cor­po­ra­tions, San­gre Grande and Siparia, the PNM was de­feat­ed by the UNC, win­ning just three seats each to the UNC’s five.

Row­ley, who de­scribed the cam­paign as dif­fi­cult, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that the par­ty did not pick up seats “in one or two ar­eas where we had hoped to im­prove our po­si­tion. But while we are dis­ap­point­ed we did not pick up in that area, which was the Siparia ef­fort, we are not sur­prised. We are quite pleased that we have in fact won the most seats.”

Row­ley thanked sup­port­ers who cam­paigned, ral­lied and vot­ed for his par­ty, de­clar­ing they had won out­right in Ari­ma, Diego Mar­tin, Port of Spain, Point Fortin. The par­ty won six of the nine seats in San Fer­nan­do, held an eleven to five edge in Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co, while in San Juan/Laven­tille they won 13 to one.

“So we have won sev­en cor­po­ra­tions in very much sim­i­lar vain in 2016 while we have dropped a cou­ple of seats in be­tween here and there,” he said.

Row­ley said the PNM did re­mark­ably well to main­tain their po­si­tion.

“We had to fight hard to main­tain our po­si­tion. We would have been more ex­cit­ed it we had made some break­throughs,” he said.

In 2016, the PNM was vic­to­ri­ous in Ari­ma, Port-of-Spain, Diego Mar­tin, Point Fortin, San Fer­nan­do, San Juan/Laven­tille, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and San­gre Grande, while the UNC won Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Pe­nal/Debe, Ch­agua­nas, Ma­yaro/Rio Claro, Princes Town and Siparia.

There was a 4-4 tie be­tween the UNC and PNM for the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, with Ter­ry Ron­don us­ing his cast­ing vote to win con­trol. Siparia was al­so a neck-and-neck race with the PNM cap­tur­ing four seats and the UNC five.

Lead­ing up the elec­tion, po­lit­i­cal ob­servers and pun­dits pre­dict­ed a tight race for the two mar­gin­al cor­po­ra­tions.

In San Fer­nan­do, the PNM lost some ground to the UNC as they were un­suc­cess­ful in Mara­bel­la West and South along with Les Ef­fort. They pre­vi­ous­ly held eight of the nine seats but now hold six.

Row­ley said the par­ty might ask for a re­count in the Co­coyea/Tarou­ba dis­trict where its can­di­date There­sa Lynch got 1043 votes—just one more than the UNC can­di­date.