00:00With both the Tobago autonomy bills and the draft elections and the Boundaries Commission
00:05Order 2024 to be debated on Monday, there is speculation that an election date announcement
00:12may be sooner rather than later.
00:14The proposed changes suggested by the EBC does not really make much of a political difference
00:22one way or the other.
00:23So that will be passed and once that is passed it clears the way for the Prime Minister to
00:29dissolve Parliament and call the election date.
00:33Last week, Chief Secretary of the THA Fahli Agustin expressed concern over the placement
00:39of the Tobago autonomy bills on the Order Paper for tomorrow, saying he believes this
00:44means the Prime Minister plans to dissolve the House in December to call the elections.
00:50The Tobago autonomy bills, as to whether or not those bills will get the support of the
00:58Opposition, we'll really have to wait and see because those are constitutionally related
01:04bills and need special maturity and if the government recognises tomorrow that they cannot
01:10get those bills passed, they may have to back down and retract or at least enter into some
01:19degree of negotiations at some later date.
01:23But Dr Agunath says the likelihood that the election date will be announced tomorrow is
01:28highly unlikely, given that the Prime Minister has signalled his intention to step down from
01:33politics and a replacement for political leader of the PNM has not been announced.
01:40I am thinking now that because of the, if he is not leading the party into the election
01:49and the party is going to have to select a leader and do all the campaigning to contest
02:00an election, that is going to put the party at a disadvantage.
02:04So I don't think it would be wise on his part to dissolve Parliament tomorrow or at least
02:10to call the election tomorrow.
02:12But we'll leave that to be seen.
02:14Since Parliament is dissolved, the government has up to three months within which to hold
02:19the general elections.
02:21With Dr Rowley already signalling a few times that he may very well not be returning and
02:27also having Mr Hynes now saying he's stepping away from representative politics, as to all
02:33words of the party, where do you feel that this leaves the party?
02:37Well, the party has a long history.
02:43The party stands, can withstand the test of time, whether the leadership of the party
02:50is going to allow the party membership to select their leader or whether the leadership
02:57is going to try to handpick and place somebody as leader, political leader to lead the party
03:07into an election.
03:08And that is something that's PNM business and PNM will have to determine what is acceptable
03:14to them.
03:15Renessa Cutting, TV6 News.
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