The de­c­la­ra­tion by the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) that it has cho­sen its first can­di­date for the next gen­er­al elec­tion in the per­son of its leader, Gary Grif­fith, for the con­stituen­cy of St Joseph, has placed the ac­com­mo­da­tion be­tween the UNC and the NTA in­to fo­cus. In the 2023 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, that ac­com­mo­da­tion was based on the tac­ti­cal avoid­ance of each oth­er to avoid split votes where the first-past-the-post sys­tem (FPTP) was in­volved. How­ev­er, their tac­ti­cal avoid­ance of the FPTP seats was not matched by a sim­i­lar avoid­ance of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion (PR) in the var­i­ous cor­po­ra­tions where their lists com­pet­ed against each oth­er.

The gen­er­al elec­tion does not have any PR com­po­nent; there­fore, the NTA has lit­er­al­ly stolen a march on their UNC al­ly by an­nounc­ing their first can­di­date in the bell­wether seat of St Joseph. The NTA may make fur­ther an­nounce­ments of can­di­dates in oth­er ar­eas not cur­rent­ly held by the UNC as the re­lease by the chair of the NTA screen­ing com­mit­tee, Lor­raine Pouchet, re­vealed that the par­ty has been screen­ing po­ten­tial can­di­dates for var­i­ous con­stituen­cies across the coun­try.

Af­ter St Joseph was sig­nif­i­cant­ly al­tered in 2004 in time for the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, it be­came a true mar­gin­al. In its 2004 re­port on the re­view of con­stituen­cy bound­aries, the EBC re­moved polling di­vi­sions 1501 and 1505, which were re­li­ably UNC, and placed them in the St Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy. Si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, they moved polling di­vi­sions 1045 and 1060, which were re­li­ably PNM in the St Ann’s East con­stituen­cy, and placed them in St Joseph.

In the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion, polling di­vi­sion 1501 was at the Bam­boo Grove Pres­by­ter­ian School, Bam­boo Set­tle­ment No 1 and the re­sult there was UNC-621 and PNM-49. The polling di­vi­sion 1505 was at the Val­sayn Teach­ers’ Col­lege, South­ern Main Road, Curepe, and the re­sult there was UNC-1,254 and PNM-569. Polling di­vi­sion 1045 in the St Ann’s East con­stituen­cy for the 2002 gen­er­al elec­tion was at the for­mer San Juan Pri­vate Sec­ondary School Build­ing, Cal­vary Hill, San Juan, and the re­sult there was PNM-485 and UNC-61.

The polling di­vi­sion 1060 in the St Ann’s East con­stituen­cy was at the same venue. The re­sult there was PNM-505 and UNC-65. St Joseph had been won by the UNC in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2002, and it had be­come a re­li­able UNC seat. In 2004, the EBC in­creased the num­ber of con­stituen­cies in T&T from 36 to 41 and a very sig­nif­i­cant shift was made in St Joseph with re­spect to bound­ary changes which re­sult­ed in the al­ready strong UNC con­stituen­cy of St Au­gus­tine be­ing re­in­forced with two strong UNC polling di­vi­sions from St Joseph in ex­change for two strong PNM polling di­vi­sions from the al­ready strong PNM con­stituen­cy of St Ann’s East.

In 2007, there was a three-way con­test be­tween the PNM, the UNC and the COP which re­sult­ed in the PNM win­ning St Joseph on a split vote (PNM-7,969 against the UNC-4,932 and the COP-4,144). The UNC won the seat in 2010 dur­ing the sweep by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship and they have nev­er re­gained it since hav­ing lost it in the by-elec­tion of 2013, the gen­er­al elec­tion of 2015 and the gen­er­al elec­tion of 2020.

The NTA has made its first move and claimed the seat as the first one that they will con­test. The dead­line for UNC nom­i­na­tions to con­test as can­di­dates of the par­ty is April 11. Screen­ing will start af­ter that date. The NTA may name more can­di­dates for mar­gin­al seats not cur­rent­ly held by the UNC so that by the time we get to April 11, they may have al­ready cov­ered ground that the UNC in­tend­ed to cov­er us­ing cur­rent bound­aries. In my col­umn two Sun­days ago, I dis­cussed the fact that the lat­est EBC re­port on bound­aries of con­stituen­cies was due to be sub­mit­ted to both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives by March 14, 2024.

There has not been a word of in­quiry from the Op­po­si­tion or any of the par­ties op­posed to the PNM about the sta­tus of the re­port. Do we know if there will still be 41 con­stituen­cies? Do we know when this re­port will be tabled in Par­lia­ment? For now, on­ly the PNM will know what changes have been made. Shock­ing­ly, there has been no re­quest for the rev­e­la­tion of the re­port.

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.