Jun 2015 Financial News

PM keeps promise to call election date. Three months of campaign ahead.

Jun 15, 2015

T&T will go to the polls in a general election on Monday, September 7.

A day after hinting about a possible election date, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced it in the House of Representatives at 2.31 pm yesterday, climaxing an address to the Parliament which closed the final session of the Tenth Parliament.

“Mr Speaker, the People’s Partnership Government is ready to return to the voters of Trinidad and Tobago. We’re ready because we are proud of our record of achievement. We’re ready because our promises have been kept. I wish to advise general elections in T&T will be held on Monday, 7 September 2015,” the PM declared.

Persad-Bissessar said she would advise the President to dissolve the Parliament at midnight on June 17—the official end of the term of the current Tenth Parliament.

The September election date means political parties—and T&T—will experience two and a half months of campaigning.

Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) Chief Elections Officer Ramesh Nanan said, yesterday, EBC law stipulates that nomination day for candidates must be no less than 21 days before the election date. That would be mid-August.

In an immediate reaction after yesterday’s parliament session ended, Opposition People’s National Movement deputy leader Marlene McDonald, who headed PNM MPs in Parliament yesterday, declared, “We ready—let’s rumble!”

Embattled Independent Liberal Party (ILP) leader Jack Warner briefly muttered, “Long overdue...”

After the PM’s announcement and the closure of Parliament at 2.45 pm, the PM and McDonald shook hands warmly and other MPs from both the PP and PNM shook hands; some hugged or kissed,

Several PP MPs shook hands with Warner as they all said goodbye to the tenth parliamentary term and left to prepare for election battle. 

That got underway last night when Persad-Bissessar addressed UNC supporters at Claxton Bay. She will also officially kick off the campaign at a Monday Night Forum at the UNC’s Rienzi Complex on Monday night.

In her final address to Parliament for the term, Persad-Bissessar said the Opposition had tried to create panic in the society by claiming if the general election was held in September it would be too late to have a national budget approved. This, she said, wasn’t true. 

“In 2002, the then prime minister waited until August 28 to advise a dissolution of Parliament, after he and his party failed to elect a speaker of the House of Representatives on two occasions when they held the reins of power after the 18-18 tie. They could have dissolved the Parliament earlier and gone to the country, but they chose to wait.

“The current Opposition Leader was a member of the Cabinet at that time and at no point did he or any member of that government ever lift a finger in public to argue about the time frame for the passing of a budget.”

She added, “Today we’re regaled with these spurious arguments when we know that their government called a general election on Monday, 7 October 2002 and they opened the Parliament on Thursday, 17 October 2002 and they went immediately into passing a budget in both Houses of Parliament before the deadline date of 31 October.

“If the result of that general election had gone our way, we would have been the ones to work with the same timelines to pass a budget.

“We’re nowhere near those timelines from 2002 and they should know better than to make such spurious arguments when there is more than adequate time to pass a budget if there is a general election in September.”

 

Source:
Gail Alexander
Trinidad Guardian
Saturday June 13, 2015

http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2015-06-12/three-months-campaign-ahead