Gail Alexan­der

More elec­tions might be on the cards af­ter the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion as by-elec­tions may be­come pos­si­ble for re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion seats if the four gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates who hold lo­cal gov­ern­ment seats win in the gen­er­al elec­tion.

This was con­firmed by Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry ex­perts yes­ter­day.

The PNM and UNC have a to­tal of four gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates who are elect­ed coun­cil­lors and are al­so cor­po­ra­tion heads.

On Tues­day, the PNM se­lect­ed Ari­ma May­or Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian for the D’Abadie O’Meara con­stituen­cy’s gen­er­al elec­tion, re­plac­ing An­cil An­toine. Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive chair­man Her­man Noel said she be­gan cam­paign­ing yes­ter­day.

The PNM al­so has two oth­er can­di­dates who are elect­ed coun­cil­lors and who are cor­po­ra­tion heads - Point Fortin can­di­date, May­or Kennedy Richards and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral can­di­date Symon De No­bre­ga who is the chair­man of the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

In the 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, Mor­ris-Ju­lian won the Ari­ma Cen­tral cor­po­ra­tion seat. Richards won the Hol­ly­wood seat and De No­bre­ga won in Morne Co­co/Alyce Glen.

Symon De Nobrega

NICOLE DRAYTON

The gen­er­al elec­tion seats the three are con­test­ing are - D’Abadie O’Meara, Point Fortin and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral - are con­sid­ered PNM safe seats.

The UNC’s can­di­date for the Ch­agua­nas East seat is Ch­agua­nas May­or Van­dana Mo­hit. She won the Cunu­pia seat in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls.

UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Devin­darath Tan­coo - who is a gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date for Oropouche West - didn’t an­swer calls on the UNC’s per­spec­tive on what would oc­cur if Mo­hit won Ch­agua­nas East.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings (can­di­date for La Hor­quet­ta Tal­paro) said he be­lieved the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple’s Act might cov­er what hap­pens when may­ors who are elect­ed coun­cil­lors are gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates. But he couldn’t give specifics.

He said if the can­di­date was an al­der­man - who’s not elect­ed - no by-elec­tion would be nec­es­sary. PNM cam­paign man­ag­er Ro­han Sinanan re­ferred queries to the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

The EBC re­ferred it to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment au­thor­i­ties.

Vandana Mohit

SHASTRI BOODAN

The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry stat­ed gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates who hold cor­po­ra­tion seats on­ly step down if they’re suc­cess­ful in their gen­er­al elec­tion bid.

They said the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tion Act doesn’t spec­i­fy when a by-elec­tion should be held when such va­can­cies arise, but the prac­tice was usu­al­ly three months.

They, how­ev­er, not­ed that by-elec­tions for the Bel­mont East and Barataria seats - where the re­spec­tive PNM coun­cil­lors there died in 2017 - didn’t take place in three months.

Those by-elec­tions oc­curred in 2018. Cum­mings said the PNM would “take this elec­tion by storm be­cause the peo­ple are hap­py with PNM’s per­for­mance.”

He pro­ject­ed a PNM vic­to­ry though he couldn’t say with how many seats.

Asked about weak­ness­es in To­ba­go East where the PNM is said to be “in trou­ble”, Cum­mings said the PNM “was do­ing well” there. He had no com­ment on an al­leged court is­sue con­cern­ing the PNM’s Moru­ga can­di­date Win­ston Pe­ters.

Kennedy Richards Jrw

UNC wants ob­servers

Mean­while, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has writ­ten Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, urg­ing him to in­vite in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers to mon­i­tor the elec­tion.

Via a UNC state­ment, she ac­knowl­edged the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions that are cur­rent­ly in ef­fect but added, “We‘re very con­cerned that mea­sures aren’t in place to en­sure cit­i­zens are able to ex­er­cise their fran­chise. In­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion or mon­i­tor­ing is an im­por­tant mech­a­nism for en­sur­ing elec­tion in­tegri­ty. The UNC is of the firm view in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers are need­ed to en­sure our elec­tion is con­duct­ed in free, fair, and just man­ner that will re­flect the true man­date of the peo­ple.”

She not­ed the crit­i­cal role in­ter­na­tion­al and Cari­com ob­servers played in Guyana’s re­cent elec­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed Row­ley was part of Cari­com’s del­e­ga­tion and he could at­test to the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al ob­servers in elec­tions.

She added, “At this junc­ture, there’s suf­fi­cient time for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers to en­ter T&T, un­der­go quar­an­tine, and up­on test­ing neg­a­tive for COVID-19, as­sume their du­ties. Any de­lays in is­su­ing in­vi­ta­tions to in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies, how­ev­er, could lead to our na­tion be­ing de­prived of this in­te­gral mech­a­nism to mon­i­tor our elec­tion.”

She called for ex­emp­tions to be grant­ed to in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, so their quar­an­tine can be com­plet­ed ahead of elec­tions. She not­ed, in the 2007, 2010 and 2015 elec­tions, T&T had ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth and Cari­com and she didn’t see any le­git­i­mate rea­son for this elec­tion to be any dif­fer­ent.