While a date is yet to be an­nounced for the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in To­ba­go is gear­ing up for the polls and will soon be­gin screen­ing po­ten­tial can­di­dates.

Of­fi­cials with­in the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM said yes­ter­day that screen­ing of prospec­tive can­di­dates should com­mence by the sec­ond week of Oc­to­ber.

They said so far, let­ters of con­sent were be­ing re­ceived and af­ter that, process­es for nom­i­na­tions will be fi­nalised.

The dead­line for nom­i­na­tions is to­mor­row. There was no word yes­ter­day from the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots or In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance on how these po­lit­i­cal par­ties were prepar­ing for the up­com­ing elec­tion.

In Jan­u­ary, both the PNM and PDP claimed six seats each, re­sult­ing in a his­toric dead­lock, which meant no one par­ty was in con­trol of the As­sem­bly.

In Sep­tem­ber, the mo­tion to con­sid­er the Draft Re­port of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) (Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly) or­der was passed in Par­lia­ment with a vote of 21 for and 18 against.

The re­port rec­om­mend­ed the cre­ation of three new elec­toral dis­tricts in To­ba­go—a mea­sure Gov­ern­ment said would break the cur­rent six-six dead­lock in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.