London: Tobago wants three seats

TOBAGO House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Orville London said he will write to the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) this week to ask that Tobago be given a minimum of three electoral seats as part of the EBC’s overall proposal to increase the nation’s total number of constituencies from 36 to 41. Speaking with reporters at President’s House last night, London said a copy of that letter will be sent to Prime Minister Patrick Manning and he is confident Manning would support this initiative. “According to the Constitu-tion, the EBC report is normally tabled in Parliament with recommendations for any modification. Those modifications will have to be supported by very solid reason. I think we have the reasons. “When we look at the arithmetic of the situation, in 1966 when the initial division was made, each Tobago seat was a little over 8,000.

Tobago has now moved to where each seat is now over 18,000 and you have a very interesting situation. Whereas each seat at the national level had increased somewhere over 90 percent, in Tobago it increased by 130 percent.” London said it was strange that justification was found to increase the number of seats in  Trinidad but not in Tobago, despite this information. However he was confident the Government would support his call for more Tobago seats so that Tobago can have a meaningful role in the governance of the State. “Any right thinking political party that has the interests of the unitary state at heart cannot help but support this,” the THA Chief Secretary declared. London said the evidence showed that more Tobago seats meant better representation for the island and the two Tobago seats out of a total of 36 seats proved this point. He also criticised THA Minority Leader Hochoy Charles for being hypocritical on this matter.