BABY DEAD IN CESSPIT

By Alexander Bruzual
November 21, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

BABY DEAD IN CESSPITTHE search for a two-year-old baby boy ended in tragedy yesterday afternoon after his body was found inside a cesspit located at the back of the child’s father’s Maracas/St Joseph home.

At about 1.15 pm yesterday police officers from the St Joseph CID and the Maracas Police Station, led by Sergeant Rene Katwaroo, made their way to the home of Allan Thomas, located along Santa Rita Trace, Lluengo Village, Maracas/St Joseph. The officers were responding to a report made by Thomas on Tuesday night, in which he alleged that his son, Jacob Munroe, two, had been kidnapped.
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‘Democracy-Strengthening’ PR An Abject Disaster

By Stephen Kangal
November 19, 2013

Stephen KangalIt is now patently clear that the mathematically-challenged eleventh hour imposition of the hapless PR formula based on the infamous 25% threshold without undertaking the requisite public consultations by the PPG has crystallized into a pure, unmitigated electoral disaster that back-fired big time. It consigned thousands of burgesses/ electoral districts to be without representation in their respective local government councils.
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Prove me wrong, PNM

By Raffique Shah
November 17, 2013

Raffique ShahMuch to the dismay of its detractors, the People’s National Movement (PNM) bounces back like the proverbial bad penny almost ritually every five years since it first lost an election in 1986. In the current political scenario, unless the 57-year-old party shoots itself in the head, the incumbents discover some magical elixir, or a mass uprising, a kind of “Trinidad spring”, occurs and spawns something new and exciting, the PNM will return to power in 2015.
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St Joseph Embodied the National Electoral Psyche

By Stephen Kangal
November 11, 2013

Stephen KangalBeing a classic marginal seat, Monday’s St. Joseph Constituency (SJC) bye-election results have encapsulated and mirrored the psycho-political underpinnings of the changing electoral dynamics as well as of the traditional ethnic moorings impacting on and progressively shaping the national political/electoral psyche- a microcosm of the macrocosm.
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Facing Elections Nightmare

By Raffique Shah
November 10, 2013

Raffique ShahMany readers scoffed at my suggestion in last week’s column that a rapprochement between UNC/COP and the ILP was a strong possibility in the run-up to the next general elections, due no later than August 2015. I imagine diehard supporters on both sides of the divide feel deeply wounded by the abuse their leaders hurled at each other during the three campaigns conducted since Jack Warner broke with the United National Congress (UNC) and formed the Independent Liberal Party (ILP).
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PNM WINS AGAIN

By Andre Bagoo and Clint Chan Tack
November 05, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

PNM WINS AGAINTHE PEOPLE’s National Movement (PNM) candidate Terrence Deyalsingh was last night declared the winner of the St Joseph bye-election, but only after the country was taken to a nail- biting finish for what was expected to be the last election in a historic year.

Deyalsingh’s nearest rival was the United National Congress (UNC)’s Ian Alleyne who, at some points in the night, appeared in the lead. The Independent Liberal Party (ILP)’s Om Lalla managed the third largest share of votes but was not really in the contest.
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Bye-Elections Up-Staged and Politicised Divali

By Stephen Kangal
November 04, 2013

Stephen KangalIt is very disturbing that the St. Joseph bye-election was fixed for November 4 by a Government whose real base is the Divali aficionados. The requisite consideration for the simple and well-known fact that the intensity of the pre-election campaigning would coincide with, distract from and up-stage the well-known calendar of pre-divali centralized festivities and regional/village observances was carelessly not factored into the decision-making scenario.
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Vengeance of Moko

By Raffique Shah
November 03, 2013

Raffique ShahWhen the votes are counted tomorrow night, the St Joseph by-election will bring to closure what may well be the most torturous year in the electoral history of this country. Two scheduled elections—the THA in January and local government last month—and two unscheduled by-elections have left us numb from campaign punishment.
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UNC Lacks Institutional Memory on Vote-Splitting

By Stephen Kangal
October 30, 2013

Stephen KangalIt appears that the UNC has no institutional memory relating to the impact of a third force in adversely affecting its electoral performance. Its well-known experience of 2007 and its course correction strategy of 2010 with the COP ought to be very instructive and to determine how it must act to avoid splitting the votes like split peas especially when that third force originates from amongst its traditional base.
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My View on the BBC’s Discussion on Motherhood and Equality

By Corey Gilkes
October 30, 2013

Dr Noel KalicharanOn Friday there was an interesting and important discussion on the BBC as part of its week-long commemoration of 100 women. The discussion explored the question “Is motherhood and impediment to equality”? Well with a title like that it was clear from what cultural context someone was thinking, but more on that in a lil bit. It was clear that many in the room felt the same way as the initial vote showed that 73% believed that it did and at the end of the discussion that figure only decreased by 3%.
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