Gail Alexan­der

Here comes the tas­sa, mo­tor­cades and nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to­day—but po­lit­i­cal par­ties must lim­it their Nom­i­na­tion Day as­sem­blies to 25 due to the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions.

Can­di­dates for the Au­gust 10 gen­er­al elec­tion will to­day file nom­i­na­tion doc­u­ments with the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s re­turn­ing of­fi­cers in T&T’s 41 con­stituen­cies to reg­is­ter for the elec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to reg­u­la­tions, all can­di­dates must pay a $5,000 de­posit. They must win one-eighth of the votes cast in their con­stituen­cy in or­der to re­trieve their de­posit.

Up to yes­ter­day, about 13 par­ties and over 133 can­di­dates had emerged as well as in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates. The EBC will is­sue a fi­nal fig­ure tonight af­ter all fig­ures are col­lat­ed.

The EBC’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Di­vi­sion yes­ter­day said the nom­i­na­tion ex­er­cise will run from 9 am to noon and 1 pm to 3 pm—and asked can­di­dates to be mind­ful of the times.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley will file his pa­pers at the Pt Cumana Re­gion­al Cen­tre for his Diego Mar­tin West seat at 9.30 am. Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will file hers at 11 am at the Siparia sub-of­fice in Pe­nal for her Siparia seat.

How­ev­er, the tra­di­tion­al Nom­i­na­tion Day “big bram” at­mos­phere may be toned down a bit due to the COVID reg­u­la­tions. The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry yes­ter­day al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic, in­clud­ing par­ties, of the re­stric­tions, in­clud­ing lim­it­ing out­door gath­er­ings to 25.

The min­istry said it’s been ob­served that peo­ple—in­clud­ing par­ties and can­di­dates—have been con­gre­gat­ing in groups over 25, adding it was an un­safe prac­tice in breach of COVID reg­u­la­tions. The min­istry not­ed there are sanc­tions for such breach­es.

How­ev­er, the reg­u­la­tions won’t cur­tail UNC can­di­dates’ plan for colour­ful pa­rades to the re­turn­ing of­fi­cers’ lo­ca­tions.

UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes yes­ter­day said most of the UNC’s 39 can­di­dates will be go­ing to their re­spec­tive lo­ca­tions with a group of 25 ac­com­pa­nied by tas­sa drum­mers.

PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing said each of the par­ty’s 41 can­di­dates will be ac­com­pa­nied by some of­fi­cials but with­in COVID reg­u­la­tions. Some PNM can­di­dates will al­so be mov­ing to and from their re­turn­ing of­fi­cers’ lo­ca­tions via mo­tor­cades. She said peo­ple will be in ve­hi­cles.

COVID reg­u­la­tions have al­so cur­tailed par­ties’ ef­forts for big launch­es, large mass meet­ings and sim­i­lar events.

But post-fil­ing tonight, the rul­ing PNM will present a vir­tu­al launch of its full can­di­date line­up via pre-record­ed pre­sen­ta­tions on tele­vi­sion and so­cial me­dia.

The PNM, which has urged sup­port­ers to fol­low pro­ceed­ings from home, is al­so hold­ing a “Watch Par­ties” even which will in­volve lim­it­ed num­bers in sev­er­al con­stituen­cies, where groups will “big up” their can­di­dates along­side the vir­tu­al na­tion­al launch.

UNC’s Haynes said the Op­po­si­tion will do its can­di­date launch to­mor­row at 7.30 pm, al­so via vir­tu­al so­cial me­dia/tele­vi­sion trans­mis­sion.