Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Copies of a fi­nal list of po­ten­tial vot­ers, num­ber­ing 95,244, were dis­trib­uted yes­ter­day to the three dif­fer­ent slates and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates con­test­ing the De­cem­ber 5 in­ter­nal elec­tions of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

The three slates–Team Re­con­nect led by Vas­ant Bharath, Team UNC led by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC Loy­al­ists led by Dr Roodal Mooni­lal–spent the day yes­ter­day go­ing through the list.

Bharath and Mooni­lal ear­li­er had con­cerns about the list, claim­ing their names and those of peo­ple on their slates were omit­ted.There were al­so con­cerns about peo­ple who were not UNC mem­bers ap­ply­ing for mem­ber­ship.Bharath yes­ter­day said his name had since been re­in­stat­ed.

"My name and Dr Fuad Khan's were ap­par­ent­ly on a mas­ter list which we had not ear­li­er seen but we have been re­in­stat­ed," he said.

Asked if he had prob­lems with the fi­nal list, he said: "We are trawl­ing through the list to­day to check the names. There were peo­ple who were claim­ing to be UNC mem­bers and we want to see if their names are on the list or not."

Mooni­lal has been re­peat­ed­ly com­plain­ing about the ve­rac­i­ty of the list, as well, but could not be reached yes­ter­day.

Fran­cis Joseph, for­mer ad­vis­er to Per­sad-Bisses­sar when she was prime min­is­ter, now on Mooni­lal's team, said they got the list yes­ter­day and were still go­ing through it.

UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day had de­clined of­fers from Mooni­lal and Bharath to join their slates charg­ing the par­ty's elec­tions would be rigged.He said the same peo­ple con­duct­ing the elec­tions were the same ones con­test­ing it.

UNC elec­tions man­age­ment of­fi­cer, Dr Ram­per­sad Paras­ram, said the names of both Khan and his wife, Dr Car­ol Bha­gan-Khan, were on the list, as well as oth­ers who said they were omit­ted.He said he did not know from where the claims came.

Paras­ram said agents of the dif­fer­ent slates and the in­de­pen­dents col­lect­ed copies of the fi­nal mem­ber­ship list on Tues­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing.He said new peo­ple had ap­plied for mem­ber­ship and were processed. He said they did not have a lot of new mem­bers.

"Up to this point, we have not had any of­fi­cial com­plaints or any is­sues raised," he added.

Paras­ram said he was un­able to give the T&T Guardian a copy of the fi­nal list of all the can­di­dates yes­ter­day be­cause it was the fi­nal day for with­draw­al.

"One per­son ac­tu­al­ly with­drew," Paras­ram said, but did not pro­vide de­tails.