Senior counsel Daly: Let Tobago return to the polls

Senior Counsel Martin Daly is suggesting that a fresh Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election be called immediately with the existing 12 electoral districts.

The result of the January 25 THA election ended in deadlock after the People’s National Movement (PNM) and Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) each won six electoral districts.

During the assembly’s 40 years in existence, the THA election has never produced a tie.

The stalemate has given rise to a further dilemma in the THA as PNM and PDP assemblymen failed, on three occasions, to elect a presiding officer to oversee the assembly’s business.

The PNM has nominated Tobago Regional Health Authority chairman Ingrid Melville while the PDP nominated Division of Sports and Youth Affairs coordinator Julien Skeete.

Both parties have since sought legal advice to end the impasse.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister proposed the Parliament amend the existing THA Act 40 of 1996 to resolve the deadlock.

The proposals involve giving the chief secretary the power to break the deadlock and changing the number of seats in the THA.

Dr Rowley said Attorney General Faris al-Rawi has advised that a draft amendment to the legislation should be before the Cabinet “in a matter of days.”

The THA has been suspended indefinitely.

Weighing in on the issue on Saturday, Daly insisted the election be rerun.

“It remains my position that there should be a fresh election for the Tobago House of Assembly immediately but on the existing basis of 12 seats,” he said in a statement.

Daly, a former independent senator, added the proposed legislation should also mandate a rerun of the election on the existing 12 seats.

“Only in default of a result producing control of a majority of seats should there then be an altercation in the number of seats”

The former independent senator argued: “Changing the rules of a contest when a replay is due does not seem to be a good governance practice.”

In relation to the proposal to increase the number of THA seats from 12 to 15 to eliminate the possibility of deadlock, Daly said: “Whatever the reliance on the Elections and Boundaries Commission as impartial in the redrawing of boundaries, the observance of democratic principles becomes an illusion if a party with a vested interest has control of the national Parliament and the choice of the legislative prescription to break the tie, as the PNM does.”

Daly believes the PNM has a vested interest in amending the THA Act “to secure some advantage.”

But he argued: “It is reasonably justifiable, in a democratic society, that taking legislative action to add seats to the 12 existing ones should await at least one further try to complete the election of an assembly on the existing basis.”