Gail Alexan­der

The sus­pense is over—elec­tion day’s Au­gust 10.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the elec­tion date just af­ter 3 pm in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

With his an­nounce­ment, Par­lia­ment was dis­solved at mid­night Fri­day.

Nom­i­na­tion Day is Ju­ly 17. At that time, can­di­dates from the var­i­ous par­ties con­test­ing the polls will sub­mit their doc­u­men­ta­tion to Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) of­fi­cers in the 41 con­stituen­cies.

Row­ley pro­duced the elec­tion date yes­ter­day at the end of the Par­lia­ment’s se­ries of sit­tings for the first half of the year. Par­lia­ment was due to go on its an­nu­al mid-year re­cess from yes­ter­day. The re­cess is nor­mal­ly tak­en from the first week of Ju­ly un­til Sep­tem­ber.

The PM’s an­nounce­ment was made at the con­clu­sion of land ac­qui­si­tion mat­ters and Op­po­si­tion ques­tions he’d replied to ear­li­er in the sit­ting. When those were com­plet­ed, Leader of Gov­ern­ment’s (Low­er House) Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounced: “I beg to move that this House be now ad­journed sine die.”

Ad­journ­ment sine die means to ad­journ for an in­def­i­nite pe­ri­od.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared ex­cit­ed when an­nounce­ment of the ad­journ­ment was giv­en. She was asked by House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George about mat­ters the Op­po­si­tion had on the agen­da be­fore the sit­ting end­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed the Par­lia­ment had ad­journed sine die. She said firm­ly, “It means the Par­lia­ment has dis­solved...noth­ing fur­ther will be done.”

PNM MPs loud­ly protest­ed her state­ment and UNC MPs replied in same.

Row­ley, prepar­ing to de­liv­er his elec­tion date state­ment, said, “I’m amazed at the abil­i­ty of my col­league from Siparia to cause dis­rup­tion...I wel­come her back to the Cham­ber but she cre­at­ed dis­tur­bance.”

He launched his ad­dress prais­ing House Speak­er An­nisette-George.

“We have come to the end of a term. As we’re about to take this re­cess, where you have stood, I must say, wom­an­ful­ly in that chair and you’ve pro­vid­ed us with guid­ance, warn­ing, slight ex­pul­sion but at the end of the day it was a plea­sure serv­ing un­der your hand in this Par­lia­ment and I look for­ward in as­so­ci­at­ing with you in some way, maybe this way or an­oth­er way in the fu­ture; your tenure hav­ing been so dis­tin­guished,” Row­ley said.

“On this day, Ju­ly 3, 2020, I’m to ad­vise all my col­leagues I have ad­vised her Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent to dis­solve the Par­lia­ment at mid­night (last night).

“Nom­i­na­tion day would be Fri­day, Ju­ly 17 and polling day would be Au­gust 10, 2020.”

Row­ley con­clud­ed, “I wish all my col­leagues a safe hap­py, en­joy­able pro­duc­tive cam­paign and I look for­ward to see­ing all of them some­where in T&T be­fore the next Par­lia­ment.’’

Wit­ness­ing the an­nounce­ment were the ma­jor­i­ty of PNM’s 23 MPs—save for Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, An­cil An­toine and Dar­ryl Smith.

Al­so present were the ma­jor­i­ty of UNC MPs. Ab­sent were Prakash Ra­mad­har, Fuad Khan, Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein, Su­ruj Ram­bachan and Bar­ry Padarath, who’s over­seas.

Af­ter the sit­ting, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said she was hap­py and ex­cit­ed, added the coun­try was “wait­ing to ex­hale.” She said UNC’s can­di­dates would be pre­sent­ed to­mor­row.

UNC has com­plet­ed screen­ing for the 39 Trinidad con­stituen­cies it’s con­test­ing and an­nounced 17 can­di­dates so far, UNC PRO Ani­ta Haynes said.

The PNM com­plet­ed screen­ing for its fi­nal seat—PoS South—on Thurs­day but all oth­er can­di­dates have been cam­paign­ing since they were an­nounced from May on­wards. PNM’s can­di­dates will be rat­i­fied by its Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive on Mon­day. PNM la­dy vice-chair­man Camille Robin­son-Reg­is couldn’t say when PNM’s cam­paign will launch.

The dis­so­lu­tion of the 11th Par­lia­ment last night comes al­most two months be­fore the end of the term in Sep­tem­ber. The Au­gust 10 elec­tion date is, how­ev­er, three weeks be­fore the end of the term

The PNM won the last elec­tions on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015. Par­lia­ment’s first sit­ting was held Sep­tem­ber 23, 20115. The past Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion had called gen­er­al polls in Sep­tem­ber 2015—three months af­ter the May 24 date of its 2010 vic­to­ry.

CHANGES TO POLLING DI­VI­SIONS FOR VOT­ERS

Vot­ers will be go­ing to the polls where changes are be­ing made to 12 of the 41 con­stituen­cies—shift­ing some polling sta­tions in­to dif­fer­ent con­stituen­cies.

This is con­tained in the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s draft or­der passed in Par­lia­ment a few months ago

In changes:

• Two polling di­vi­sions are be­ing trans­ferred from Cou­va North to Cou­va South

• Three To­co/San­gre Grande polling di­vi­sions are go­ing in­to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la

• One Laven­tille West polling di­vi­sion is go­ing to Laven­tille East/Mor­vant

• One Oropouche East polling di­vi­sion is go­ing to Oropouche West

• Two Port of Spain South­polling di­vi­sions will go Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West and one polling di­vi­sion to Laven­tille West

• Two polling di­vi­sions will be trans­ferred from San Fer­nan­do East to San Fer­nan­do West.

The T&T elec­torate stood at around 1.5 mil­lion re­cent­ly.