2023_Trinidadian_local_elections
The 2023 Trinidadian local elections were held on Monday, August 14, 2023, across all 141 electoral districts in Trinidad's 14 municipal corporation electoral areas. The elections follow a 3-2 ruling on May 18, 2023, from the United Kingdom's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago's highest court of appeal, which stated that the government's one-year extension of the mandate of councillors and alderman was unlawful. The matter was brought before the Law Lords of the Privy Council by Ravi Balgobin Maharaj, and his legal team led by Anand Ramlogan, SC. The legal action taken by Ravi Balgobin Maharaj was necessary after the PNM government decided to extend the election by one year, which the Privy Council ruled was inconsistent with the rule of Democracy. The judgement handed down to Ravi Balgobin Maharaj by the Law Lords was a landmark ruling in the Commonwealth and marks the first time that a Court upheld the rights of citizens to vote in a Local Government Election.
The election also comes two years after the PNM's landslide loss in the December 2021 Tobago House of Assembly election, where the party was wiped out of office in the Tobago House of Assembly after two decades in power.[1][2] Polls pointed to widespread rejection among the population for both the governing People's National Movement and the opposition United National Congress with both major parties and their leaders, Prime Minister Keith Rowley and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar being "extremely unpopular with unprecedented low approval ratings."[3]
The Elections And Boundaries Commission (EBC) is yet to produce a map of the boundaries of all 141 electoral districts in Trinidad. With the exception of those areas that have had boundary changes, the seats up for election were last contested in the 2019 local elections. The number of electoral districts has increased from 139 to 141 with the creation of two new seats, Couva West/Roystonia in the Couva–Tabaquite–Talparo Regional Corporation and Mayaro North in the Mayaro–Rio Claro Regional Corporation and also 22 boundary changes in six other corporations: Chaguanas, Point Fortin, Couva–Tabaquite–Talparo, Penal–Debe, Siparia and Mayaro–Rio Claro.[4] It i the first election since the establishment of regional corporations—Diego Martin and Siparia—as boroughs.
Since 1946, when the office of the mayor of the Port of Spain City Corporation was created, only men have officially served as mayor of the country's capital, despite voters in the last local elections electing a female majority city corporation slate in a historic first[5] and the outcry from women's activists on the lack of gender equality with political parties in terms of a low number of nominations by parties of prospective female councillors and female aldermen.[6] In 2019, both parties won control of seven of the fourteen corporations with the People's National Movement (PNM) losing their minority control status in the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation. The PNM won 72 of the then 139 electoral districts, but lost the popular vote and 11 electoral districts: Sangre Grande North West in the Sangre Grande regional corporation, Lengua/Indian Walk in the Princes Town Regional Corporation, Siparia West/Fyzabad in the Siparia Regional Corporation, Cocal/Mafeking in the Mayaro–Rio Claro Regional Corporation, Enterprise South/Longdenville North in the Chaguanas Borough Corporation, Caura/Paradise/Tacarigua in the Tunapuna–Piarco Regional Corporation, Les Effort West/La Romaine, Marabella West and Marabella West/Vistabella in the San Fernando City Corporation while gaining two from the United National Congress, in the San Juan–Laventille Regional Corporation, San Juan East and Barataria. The UNC also won the newly created districts of El Socorro/Aranguez North and La Fortune/Debe North, in the San Juan–Laventille and Penal–Debe Regional Corporation.