PM bluffing on early elections

Maharaj also revealed that the new political party which he is forming, will be officially launch-ed sometime after the Opposition United National Congress’ (UNC) internal executive elections on October 2.

Over the last few months, the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) has been holding a series of public meetings throughout the country and at each of those meetings (where various government ministers give updates on initiatives within their respective ministries), the Prime Minister has consistently raised the possibility of an early general election being held in TT.

PNM chairman Franklin Khan has said the party has been on election footing for some time and would be ready by December to contest an election based on the new 41 constituency configuration (39 in Trinidad and two in Tobago) that has been proposed by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC). Parliament has already approved the EBC report proposing this new electoral configuration from 36 to 41 seats.

However Maharaj advised the electorate to put their party paraphernalia away until 2007 when general elections are constitutionally due. He argued that after the experience of 1995 (when Manning called an early election which ended 17-17-2 and saw the UNC coming to power as part of a coalition government with the National Alliance for Reconstruction-NAR Tobago), Manning was unlikely to run the risk of calling an early election again.

Maharaj claimed that the crime situation in TT alone would prevent the Prime Minister from calling an election early because he (Manning) knows there is a possibility that the country could unite against him. The former AG added that the only way he saw Manning calling an early general election was if political instability developed within the PNM’s ranks to the point of its destabilisation. Maharaj also said Manning must not make the mistake of using the current confusion within the Opposition’s ranks as the basis upon which to call elections.

Saying that he has been working quietly behind the scenes over the last several months to create a new political vehicle for TT, Maharaj said this new movement will be launched after the UNC’s internal polls. He added that given the current turmoil inside the Opposition’s ranks, this was the best political strategy to adopt at this time.

Included in this movement, he disclosed, are reputable persons with previous experience in government. Two of them are former UNC ministers (who are neither sitting MPs or current members of the party) and another two were members of the 1986-1991 NAR administration. Maharaj declined to reveal their identities.

Maharaj said the aim of this new movement was to "come out to the population gradually and present a national team. Our aim is to transform the lives of people and for people to determine whether they want this team to go into politics," the former AG declared. Reiterating that the population was fed up with the brand of politics subscribed to by the PNM and UNC, Maharaj said he was not prepared to be part of a political party where a small clique of persons called all the shots and stressed that the new movement would be a political party built from the ground up.

Maharaj did not rule out the possibility of the new party working with other political entities, included a reformed and credible UNC, but said such a partnership would have to be built on certain fundamental principles such as integrity and morality.

Asked whether this movement could be absorbed into an existing political party, Maharaj said that was a matter for the people to decide. He also boasted that the leadership of the new movement would be far superior to anything which the PNM and UNC could ever offer the population.