Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Now a station that's giving you back the power to speak your mind. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: By this time. We welcome back to our program a gentleman who's been with us several times before, spoken about a number of things. And he's back with us this morning to give us some insight into this latest move by the ABC to rename five constituencies, changing some boundaries, moving across some polling divisions and everything else. It's already generated a lot of discussion. Welcome back to our program here this morning. It is my pleasure to have with us this gentleman who can tell us what's going on. That's Doctor Bishni Raghunath. Good morning to you. Welcome back to the show.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Good morning. Thank you for being allowed to go on your station this morning. And good morning to your listeners this morning.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Well, I wanted to speak to you since the EBC made its announcements because I think it needs explaining to the people as to what really is going on. The EBC wants to change the name of certain things and how is that going to have an impact? Already we have the opposition leader saying, I watch this because the EBC is our PNM party group and they want to change things. And the usual, we hear all of these allegations being made, but is it the reality of what's going on? So let's get your analysis, because I'm sure that you would have looked closely at, at some of what is taking place and whether or not it has the implications that some people, and general discussions, you know, people talk about all kinds of things, whether or not it's going to have the impact, negative or otherwise, that some people are suggesting, tell.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: Us, okay, so let's start. The report is a normal thing that they have to do. They are required by the constitution to do. The fortunate or unfortunate aspect of it is simply that the EBCs, because of how they do their work in the past, they have been accused of gerrymandering boundaries and so forth in order to give one party or another party an advantage, an unfair advantage.
And that is one of the things that has been made even in this election, I think, as in this report, following this report by Kamala. Of course, whether the data bears it out or not, we'll have to really wait and see. But from our own perspective, and when we analyze what has been produced and given to the parliament, we are concerned.
We could tell you that to some extent there's nothing too sinister about what has happened with this current EBC report.
So two major things has happened. One, the EBC has decided to change names of some constituencies and they this time around they have changed names of five constituencies.
The five constituencies that they have decided to change names of.
We could only assume that in these constituencies the new names would more reflect where people reside within the context of the constituency.
There has been the concern, for instance as to whether or not changing of the names would make a major difference.
My own perspective on that is that it doesn't make a difference because let us use the one constituency and this is, this is a special constituency whereas special in terms of this defense.
That is the pointer payer constituency which the EBC has now decided to suggest that it should be called Claxton B rather than point of care.
This is the one constituency that is different from the other four that has been named for, identified for name changes. And it's different because in this constituency there's only, there's a change also in the boundaries in that there's an additional foreign division now coming into this constituency.
So what we know for a fact is that from the Tabaqui constituency in the past they are taking a polling division from there and putting it into Claxton B.
So that's a major change. But for the other four constituencies there have been no changes in boundaries.
What does this boundary change? And that is where we come out to the other aspect of the changes recommended and that is the changes with regard to the boundaries of certain constituencies. In fact 16 constituencies have been named as to have boundary changes and what does that mean for those 16 constituencies?
So those are the two major issues. So let me go back to the first issue. The name changes. The name changes does not mean anything much in point of reference. If you were uh. If you live in, in that point of care constituency and you are custom voting UNC there's nothing that tells you you have to vote differently this time around. Vice likewise if you are custom voting PNM there's nothing that you should vote anywhere any how different this time around. So clearly the name of the constituency merely is an attempt to reflect what is happening.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Now the opposition has taken um, an interesting point appear because they saying that they don't want uh, people to remember point appear. But my question to you, and I don't know what, and I don't know the, the rational except to say that the ABC is probably trying to say let us look more and more at what is reflective of the geographical area. So when you talk about point appear for instance is the majority of people living in point a pier or are they living somewhere? Else. And if they live in somewhere else, should we name the constituency after the police? They live in it. And that. And that's basically it. When we talk about the constituencies and the name changes. Hold on.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: There's a great level of distrust because of the political narrative that we have in the country about the EBC. There are people who just don't trust the EBC based on what their political affiliates say to them. And we can't get away from that reality. But what I'd like you to do is explain, if you can, how the EBC goes about determining where changes need to be made. Because one of the arguments, or let me just say arguments, one of the positions put forward is that there needs to be a certain number of voters within an electoral catchment. And that dictates what happens. We need to take this number up. We need to take a number down. And that's why you have these variances based on the numbers of voters that would exist in a constituency or polling division or whatever else. But some people say that, well, okay, if you want to tell me that you have more than what you're supposed to have in some constituencies, and you have less than what you're supposed to have in some constituencies, how does the EBC decide or what is the method that they use, rather, in making that determination?
[00:07:59] Speaker C: Okay, so that is an easy question to explain, although the answer could go in two directions.
One, what the EBC does is simply take the total number of electors, total number of voters in the country, and divide that number by the number of constituencies that you have. Now, here comes an immediate problem. The constitution says that we should try to have equality in the number of voters across the country. But the BBC has traditionally and continuously, and are continuing to do so this time around in separating the islands. So in Tobago, there are less voters and in constituencies there than they are in Trinidad.
Now, they could remedy that very easily by simply saying, okay, fine. Let us look at Trinidad and Tobago as a whole.
Look at the number of voters you have in Tobago. And this time around, I think they have put Tobago as having. I think it's just over 52,000 electors. So that means that if you divide Tobago into two, that be 26,000 electors per constituency, whereas in Trinidad, we're talking about just under 1100 thousand voters. Now, they have decided to divide this by 59.
And that will give us about 28,000 people per constituency if you're dividing by 39. Now, had the ABC gone one step further and recommended, for instance, in Trinidad, that they divide by 41 rather than 39? When I said, so, instead of having 41 constituencies in Trinidad and Tobago, they could have added two more constituencies in Trinidad, and we could have even all the numbers across Trinidad and Tobago. But they have decided to keep with the 39 in Trinidad. And so that's one of the issues that could be raised later on. For the time being, let us hold with it that they have recommended 29 39 constituencies in Sri Lanka. They have divided the 11,000, 1100 thousand voters by 39. They get 28,000 per constituency. Now, the law allows them, and the tradition not over that a constituency, the voters in a constituency can be plus or minus that 10% of that average. So when we talk about 28,000 being the average across the Trinidad, they get, the number of voters in any constituency could be 28,000, plus an additional 2800 or less. 2800?
[00:11:16] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:11:17] Speaker C: Okay. So those are the boundaries, the maximum and the minimum. Every constituency must have or should have no more than 28,008 plus 2800 as 30,800 or 28,000 less thousand, 800. So you get maximums and minimums for every constituency. And that is the base upon. Now, they will now move to now check the number of electors in each constituency, and then now decide whether we should move some people out of one constituency and move them into another constituency where the numbers might be less than the average, and especially so when the numbers are less than the. The 28,000 less than 2800. So that's 25,200 if you move. If you have a constituency with less than that, you have to get people in there. So you now have to take from another constituency and shift them into this constituency where there's less. Where there's more than 28,000, where there's more than 30 to 2800. You again have now to shift people out of that constituency to get to that average number, which is like 28,000 plus the 2800, or 2000 less than 2800. So that's. That's a simple math that they have to use. Now, here in comes the question, where do you take people from, particularly so. And this, I think, has been one of the examples that the UNC has given with regard to the issue with San Fernando west and Oropoch East, Orapoo east has a larger than average that has more electors than what is the average that we are supposed to have. And to that extent, they had to move people out. What we noted was that San Fernando west had less than 28,000 voters. So now you need to get people into San Fernando west, and you need to get them at Putin's constituency next to Sanford and the west, that you could take people out. What the EBC attempted to do, or at least proposed to do, is that they will take from east, move them into San Fernando east and take people from San Fernando polling divisions from San Fernando east and move it into San Fernando west.
The difference here, however, and this is where the issue comes out, those polling divisions that they are moving from one constituency to another constituency, they may have voters preferring one party as opposed to another party.
So in the case of the San Fernando east constituency, where they move to Poland division from San Fernando east into San Fernando west, what we noted with the two San Fernando east seats, polling division, sorry, those two polling divisions, when you talk about having about 400 or just under 500 voters in each one of those polling divisions, right? So they move in about 900 people from San Fernando east into San Fernando west. But of those 900 people, this is the issue.
How many of those people traditionally voted PNM? How many of those people traditionally voted UNC?
And what we saw with regard to those polling divisions is that in these polling divisions, the people who would traditionally vote PNM were higher than the number people who would traditionally vote UNC.
And so, of course they say, well, all right, so when you look at polling division 4005, yes, you had 461 people voting in that, sorry, 461 electors in that Poland division. But out of the 461, only about 250 people will vote. But guess what, of those 200 and 5135 votes for the PNM, or in the last election, and 115 voted for the UNC. So, of course, the point here is simply. But here now they move in more people who vote in PNM than they move in people who vote in uncle. And that gives the PNM an added advantage in San Fernando west as opposed to the UNC getting the added advantage. Now, had we taken the two polling divisions directly from Oropuch east and put them into San Fernando west, here's what we would have gotten in the case of Poland division 3874, for instance, where there are 622 electors, of the 622 electors who know what the EBC has proposed, as these people now be moved from east into San Fernando east, of these 622 electors, who would normally vote, what? Who would normally vote is about 200, 350, 60 people. And.
And of the 360 people who would normally vote, only 114 voted for the PNM, whereas 247 voted for the UNC. So now, had we put that polling division into San Fernando west, what we would have gotten is that the UN would have got like a 130 more votes than 50, the PNM, if you're using the 2020 voting patterns.
And that would have given the UNC an advantage as opposed to the PNM. So that is the argument that the UNC has been making, that in shifting boundaries, what the EBC has done is, in a way, trying to gerrymander giving the PNM an advantage. Because when they move the polling division, that polling division from Oru Puch east into San Fernando east, what they are given is simply, well, all right, San Fernando east is a safe PNM seat. We don't have to worry about that. And giving the UNC extra hundred votes would make a difference. We would still, PNM will still win it.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: But.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: But if you know that polling division into San Fernando west, directly into San Fernando west, what you'll probably be doing is you'll be given the UNC an additional hundred votes. And we always hear San Fernando as a marginal seat. So if San Fernando was the marginal seat, now that will make a big difference in terms of that 100 extra votes. And that's the argument because we almost.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: Had the time for the interview. It's amazing how quickly but time goes into this comprehensive review of what's going on to deal with some of the concerns being bandied about in the public domain.
There are several issues that we need to consider when adjudicating upon these changes and all of these various things. Voting patterns, definitely one of them. But from what you're suggesting, not much is going to change. And this should be for the EBC, a numerical exercise, not necessarily on who, voting for who, where and all of that kind of thing, but a numerical exercise. And as we wrap up, I'll just get your opinion quickly on a message that was sent in somebody suggesting, as we're talking constitutional reform, that we focus on doing away with all these constituencies, making Trinidad and Tobago one big constituency, and. And re engineering how we hold elections and all those kinds of things quickly. Do you think that's something that we could even begin to discuss, much less implement?
[00:20:26] Speaker C: The issue of moving away from the first past support, which is what we have right now, to a proportional representational model, has always been discussed. In fact, way back in 1974, when the, the wooden constitution Commission met, there was a concern as to whether we needed to move away from first power support into proportional representation.
There's that argument that at least that way you get a lot more representation. So, for instance, especially for smaller parties who cannot win an election in a constituency by themselves, what it would mean is simply that you give them you allow that party to get some seats in the parliament when you look at it from a national average. So if they only get in 10% of the vote nationally, they get 10% of the seats in the parliament. So that is something that has to be considered in terms of constitutional reform.
My perspective on that is simply that that is one approach to take. In fact, my own position in terms of my own recommendations to the advisory committee on the constitutional reform that the prime minister set up and I sent in my comments to them was simply, well, you know, we could do this thing differently. You know, we could have the same post pass the post system for the 41 constituencies in Trinidad voting and electing the members the same way that we elect them now. But for the Senate, we could use that same proportional representation, that proportional representation model. So we do away with the independent senators that the president puts in there, which some people says, because the president is a former PNM person, the people should put these PNM people do away with the independent senators. And the proposal that I have put in there is make the Senate a house that has proportional representation. So the same way you could look at how many people voted in the general election and what percentage of voters. So if the PNM gets a majority of votes in, they could get a majority of seats, as they did in the last election, did they get a majority of votes? And if they didn't get a majority of votes here, in comes the question, should they have that majority of seats in the Senate? And that is where we now come down to when we now have party politics and smaller parties now could probably. A smaller party could probably would have gotten an additional seat or one seat which would have reduced the PNM's average or number in the Senate, as opposed to what they have. Right. So that is a consideration, especially when we have two parties. So, for instance, as we go into this new. In this next election, we are already hearing, for instance, that the.
In Tobago, there might be the TPP and the PDP contesting against the PNM. In Trinidad, we have the UNC, we will have the NTA, we'll have the pep. All of these parties. And now would it. So if we have an election, and this is just a scenario that I'm painting. Let us paint a scenario where the PNM, for instance, wins 20 seats in Trinidad.
Right now they have 22. Let us, let us use this scenario where they win 20 seats in Trinidad, and if they lost two seats in Tobago and they lost the other 19 seats that the UNC currently holds. So that's now 21 seats. So you now have a.
You now have UNC having 19. P and M having 20. And in Tobago two seats going to another party.
Then what you now have is you now have a parliament that may not have a majority.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Okay, doctor.
However, I'm sorry. Okay, doctor Raghurath, I'm sorry, but that's where we're gonna have to leave it here this morning. We are out of time. So we definitely would have another interview to further this discussion. Because people are very concerned about all of these things that you're talking about. But this. We're gonna have to leave. I want to thank you for being with us here this morning.
[00:25:09] Speaker C: It's been my best.
[00:25:10] Speaker A: Now, a station that's giving you back the power to speak your mind. The all new talk radio Freedom 106.5.
