Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son has ac­cused the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of be­ing “in ca­hoots” with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), point­ing to con­tro­ver­sial changes to To­ba­go’s elec­toral bound­aries over the years as the ba­sis for his claim.

Samp­son made the al­le­ga­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day while con­tribut­ing to de­bate on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, which pro­pos­es ma­jor changes to Trinidad’s mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that the EBC is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly in­de­pen­dent, Samp­son said To­ba­go’s elec­toral his­to­ry had led him to a dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal con­clu­sion.

“I have watched what has hap­pened in To­ba­go. I have looked at the his­to­ry. I have looked at the tim­ing. I have looked at the pat­terns,” Samp­son said.

“And I am en­ti­tled to form a po­lit­i­cal judge­ment based up­on what I have seen. And my po­lit­i­cal judge­ment is this: I be­lieve that the EBC has been in ca­hoots with the PNM.”

The al­le­ga­tion im­me­di­ate­ly drew a point of or­der from the Op­po­si­tion bench­es, but Speak­er Jagdeo Singh al­lowed Samp­son to con­tin­ue.

Samp­son based much of his ar­gu­ment on the af­ter­math of the Jan­u­ary 2021 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion, which end­ed in a his­toric 6-6 dead­lock be­tween the PNM and Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP).

Par­lia­ment sub­se­quent­ly amend­ed the law to in­crease the num­ber of THA elec­toral dis­tricts from 12 to 15.

Samp­son ques­tioned why three ad­di­tion­al seats were re­quired to break the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­oth­er tie in­stead of one, ar­gu­ing that all three new dis­tricts were cre­at­ed from ge­o­graph­i­cal ar­eas rep­re­sent­ed by the PNM.

“The six PNM-held dis­tricts be­came the ge­o­graph­i­cal source from which nine dis­tricts were pro­duced. None of the three new seats was cre­at­ed out of a PDP-held seat,” he said.

He al­so re­vis­it­ed the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing bound­ary changes ahead of the 2005 THA elec­tion, cit­ing com­plaints raised in Par­lia­ment at the time that an EBC re­port had al­leged­ly been cir­cu­lat­ing with­in the PNM be­fore it was for­mal­ly laid.

Samp­son al­so ques­tioned the in­de­pen­dence of the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, ac­cus­ing the PNM of plac­ing a “die-hard PNM” in what he de­scribed as “the most in­de­pen­dent of­fice in this land.”

That prompt­ed an ob­jec­tion from the Op­po­si­tion, but the Speak­er ruled that Samp­son had not specif­i­cal­ly re­ferred to the Pres­i­dent’s con­duct and al­lowed him to pro­ceed.

Young: Com­plete rub­bish

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young lat­er strong­ly re­ject­ed Samp­son’s ac­cu­sa­tion against the EBC, de­scrib­ing it as “com­plete rub­bish.”

Young said the re­sults of re­cent elec­tions alone should dis­pel any sug­ges­tion that the EBC was bi­ased in favour of the PNM.

“If this so-called in­de­pen­dent body that they al­ways have a prob­lem with un­til they win an elec­tion was ac­tu­al­ly in ca­hoots with the PNM, why are we sit­ting on this side and them on that side?” Young asked.

He al­so point­ed to the out­come of the THA elec­tion fol­low­ing To­ba­go’s move from 12 to 15 elec­toral dis­tricts as fur­ther ev­i­dence against Samp­son’s claim.

Young stressed that the EBC had no role in de­ter­min­ing the new mu­nic­i­pal bound­aries con­tained in the leg­is­la­tion cur­rent­ly be­fore Par­lia­ment.

“The EBC has ab­solute­ly noth­ing to do with these pieces of pa­per that we’re here de­bat­ing. Their work be­gins when this leg­is­la­tion is passed,” he said.

He al­so dis­put­ed Samp­son’s ac­count of To­ba­go’s move from 12 to 15 elec­toral dis­tricts, say­ing the de­ci­sion to in­crease the num­ber of seats fol­lowed more than two years of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion in To­ba­go through a par­lia­men­tary Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee ex­am­in­ing To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.

Young main­tained that while Par­lia­ment de­ter­mined there should be 15 seats, the bound­aries them­selves were drawn in­de­pen­dent­ly by the EBC.

He said the PNM would con­tin­ue to de­fend the Com­mis­sion from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, in­sist­ing the EBC must re­main “com­plete­ly au­tonomous” in de­ter­min­ing elec­toral bound­aries.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia for a re­sponse, the EBC de­clined to com­ment.