Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

It hap­pened dra­mat­i­cal­ly in Ch­agua­nas in 2013, when then In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) coun­cil­lor Faaiq Mo­hammed broke ranks with Jack Warn­er’s fledg­ling par­ty and sided with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion had left the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion dead­locked, with the UNC, Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and ILP each con­trol­ling four of the 12 po­si­tions.

Mo­hammed’s de­ci­sion to vote with the UNC broke that bal­ance and ul­ti­mate­ly helped the par­ty se­cure con­trol of the cor­po­ra­tion.

More than a decade lat­er, the po­lit­i­cal con­se­quences of switch­ing sides con­tin­ue to play out, for ex­am­ple in Siparia.

Siparia West/Fyz­abad coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali, elect­ed on a UNC tick­et in 2023, crossed over to the PNM in Au­gust 2024.

More re­cent­ly, for­mer UNC al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts al­so switched al­le­giance, help­ing give the PNM a ma­jor­i­ty in the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, even though the cor­po­ra­tion con­tin­ues to be head­ed by UNC May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo.

Un­der the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, a coun­cil­lor or al­der­man elect­ed or ap­point­ed un­der a po­lit­i­cal par­ty would lose of­fice if he or she re­signs from or is ex­pelled by that par­ty.

The may­or would have sev­en days af­ter re­ceiv­ing the re­quired no­tice to con­vene a spe­cial meet­ing to de­clare the of­fice va­cant. If that meet­ing is not held, the of­fice would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­come va­cant af­ter the sev­en days.

The Bill al­so gives po­lit­i­cal par­ties greater con­trol over their lists of al­der­men, al­low­ing names to be added, re­moved or sub­sti­tut­ed even af­ter al­der­men have been ap­point­ed.

Now Coun­cil­lor Ali is strong­ly op­pos­ing leg­is­la­tion which could pre­vent that from hap­pen­ing again.

He de­scribed the pro­posed changes as an “act of des­per­a­tion” and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of dis­play­ing “dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies.”

“This piece of leg­is­la­tion that is be­ing brought here to the Par­lia­ment is ba­si­cal­ly sti­fling politi­cians and it is now telling them that they must go with the flow,” Ali told Guardian Me­dia.

He ar­gued that coun­cil­lors who be­come dis­sat­is­fied with the di­rec­tion of the par­ty un­der whose ban­ner they were elect­ed should not be forced to re­main.

“If some­one sees that some­thing is not go­ing cor­rect with­in their po­lit­i­cal par­ty that they choose to rep­re­sent, and they want to make a change for the de­vel­op­ment and for the prop­er run­ning of a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, they are now be­ing sti­fled,” Ali said.

“If you are see­ing some­thing that is not cor­rect and it is in­cor­rect, you can­not speak out, you can­not stand up for what is right.”

Ali was par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal of the pro­vi­sion al­low­ing a seat to be­come va­cant fol­low­ing a coun­cil­lor’s res­ig­na­tion from or ex­pul­sion by a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“It shows that there is now a lev­el of dic­ta­to­r­i­al ten­den­cies with­in this Gov­ern­ment and they are sti­fling free­dom of speech; they are sti­fling free­dom of ex­pres­sion,” he said.

Ali said he had no re­grets about cross­ing the floor on Au­gust 12, 2024, and re­mains will­ing to put that de­ci­sion be­fore the elec­torate.

“I said, I am will­ing to de­fend my seat at a Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion,” he re­called.

“I said, tell me if you will give me a date and I will make the seat va­cant and I will fight and de­fend the seat when that time comes.”

Ali said he was still wait­ing for that op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“They can go and de­bate it in Par­lia­ment. They can hide be­hind it. But the pop­u­la­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go will speak out,” he said.

Na­hous backs change

But an­oth­er lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive whose po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance came un­der scruti­ny has tak­en a dif­fer­ent po­si­tion.

Paul-Daniel Na­hous was ap­point­ed an al­der­man in the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion un­der the ban­ner of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), but pub­licly sup­port­ed the UNC ahead of the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, prompt­ing then NTA leader Gary Grif­fith to call on him to re­sign.

Na­hous now sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed changes.

“If the Gov­ern­ment is look­ing to bring this leg­is­la­tion, I’m sure it would have been well re­searched, they would have had good rea­son and good sup­port be­hind it,” he said.

“I do sup­port the pro­vi­sion ful­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Na­hous whether that po­si­tion con­flict­ed with the phi­los­o­phy be­hind his own de­ci­sion to re­main an al­der­man af­ter part­ing ways with the NTA.

Na­hous said his cir­cum­stances were dif­fer­ent, point­ing to the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the NTA and UNC at the time and his own work dur­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign.

“A lot of things had changed when the par­ty be­came not just ir­rel­e­vant, but the par­ty be­came against the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple there, and I stand by that,” he said.

Na­hous sub­se­quent­ly told Guardian Me­dia he left the NTA months be­fore the 2025 elec­tion and did not re­main in of­fice with­out the con­sent of the ap­pro­pri­ate par­ty ex­ec­u­tives.

He said that af­ter the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, he dis­cussed his po­si­tion with the NTA’s new lead­er­ship and of­fered the prospect of re­sign­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to Na­hous, it was agreed that he could con­tin­ue serv­ing as an in­de­pen­dent al­der­man be­cause he was not a card-car­ry­ing UNC mem­ber or sub­ject to UNC di­rec­tives.

Asked whether he would now step down giv­en his sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed prin­ci­ple, Na­hous in­di­cat­ed he in­tends to con­tin­ue serv­ing un­less the leg­is­la­tion or fur­ther dis­cus­sions dic­tate oth­er­wise.

“My term cur­rent­ly has less than a year and I do plan on wrap­ping up my con­tri­bu­tion to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

Na­hous said va­cat­ing his po­si­tion now “would have a neg­a­tive im­pact on the burgess­es” with whom he is cur­rent­ly en­gag­ing.

“So I would ei­ther wait for leg­is­la­tion or oth­er dis­cus­sions,” he said.

Gird­harie: Peo­ple elect the coun­cil­lor

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­harie for Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la, who left the par­ty and joined the PNM ahead of the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion, al­so dis­agrees with the pro­posed ap­proach, at least where elect­ed coun­cil­lors are con­cerned.

Gird­harie drew a dis­tinc­tion be­tween al­der­men, who are ap­point­ed through po­lit­i­cal par­ty lists, and coun­cil­lors, who are di­rect­ly elect­ed.

“It is the peo­ple that the coun­cil­lor is rep­re­sent­ing that vot­ed for him or her,” he said.

“The par­ty, their will can­not su­per­sede that of the elec­torate that vot­ed for a coun­cil­lor.”

Gird­harie said he could un­der­stand the pro­vi­sion ap­ply­ing to al­der­men be­cause they are ap­point­ed by par­ties, but ar­gued that a coun­cil­lor de­rives his au­thor­i­ty di­rect­ly from vot­ers.

“When your garbage isn’t picked up, who you call­ing? The par­ty head­quar­ters? No, you’re call­ing your rep­re­sen­ta­tive, which is the in­di­vid­ual,” he said.

For Gird­harie, that makes the roles fun­da­men­tal­ly dif­fer­ent and rais­es the cen­tral ques­tion sur­round­ing the pro­posed change: whether an elect­ed Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment seat ul­ti­mate­ly be­longs to the po­lit­i­cal par­ty, or the rep­re­sen­ta­tive cho­sen by the burgess­es.

CROSS­ING THE FLOOR: 20 YEARS OF DE­FEC­TIONS

2010 | Diptee Ram­nath | PNM ➜ UNC

2013 | 3 San­gre Grande coun­cil­lors | PP ➜ ILP

2013 | Faaiq Mo­hammed | ILP ➜ UNC

2019 | Kublal Pal­too | UNC ➜ PNM

2022–23 | Sankar • Gird­harie • Gar­cia | UNC ➜ PNM

2024 | Ja­son Ali | UNC ➜ PNM

2026 | Vic­tor Roberts | UNC ➜ PNM