Voting ends after low turnout in T&T's first LGE in 7 years

The polls have closed in Trinidad in Monday's Local Government Elections (LGE). And reports suggest that voting was slower than expected during the day meaning that voter turnout in the first local elections in seven years has been lower than anticipated.

The people of Tobago were not involved in Monday's vote since the island is governed by the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), which operates outside of the municipal jurisdictions.

Despite the low turnout Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is expecting that her People's Partnership will win a majority of the 14 regional districts, including the city of San Fernando.

Two months ago the People's partnership was elected to government, pledging to hold the LGE and on June 16 when Parliament opened Persad-Bissessar made good on that pledge and announced the election date.

There are 134 seats at stake in 14 local corporations and if the polls are correct there will be a landslide in favour of the governing People's Partnership coalition. Three seats have been won unopposed.

That would be a reversal of what happened in 2003 when the People's National Movement (PNM) - which was in government at the time - won a landslide, taking nine of the 14 municipalities.

Persad-Bissessar has called on citizens to reject the PNM, which had denied them the opportunity for four years to vote in a local election. And throughout the campaign she and her colleagues have stressed that the opposition cannot deliver any services to them.

"If they didn't do it while they were in government, how can they do it in opposition," was the most common mantra during the short campaign.

While the governing party attracted support across the country in what has looked more like a general election campaign than a local one, the PNM under its new leader, Keith Rowley, struggled to focus on a message or get people to attend his meetings.

His predecessor, former prime minister Patrick Manning, was hounded out of office shortly after losing the May 24 general election, leaving a party with split loyalties in the small 12-member Parliamentary caucus.

Manning refused to attend the PNM's closing rally on Saturday and two other elected MPs were absent for the entire campaign. Both Colm Imbert and Dr Amery Brown are reported to be out of the country.

In 2003 when the last LGE was held only 38 per cent of the electorate voted; in the 1999 vote it was 39 per cent. By comparison nearly 70 per cent of the eligible voters cast ballots on May 24 in the general election.