SHAS­TRI BOODAN

UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions start­ed on time at its cen­tres in cen­tral Trinidad. How­ev­er there were com­plaints by par­ty mem­bers of be­ing omit­ted from the lists. Lisa Bho­lai, who said she was a life­time mem­ber of the UNC, how­ev­er found that most of her rel­a­tives had been boot­ed from the list at Wa­ter­loo High School. Bho­lai said she want­ed an­swers.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that Renu­ka Kan­gal, the coun­cil­lor for Cunu­pia in the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was al­so not on the list. Kan­gal said she pre­ferred not to com­ment on the mat­ter. At the Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment School, In­dra Jagges­sar-Maraj, an elec­tion agent, and Sunil Ramjits­ingh, a can­di­date for the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, both com­plained that can­di­dates were not giv­en lists of elec­tors to lob­by be­fore the elec­tions.

Jagges­sar-Ma­haraj said she made sev­er­al re­quests for the lists and were told that lists would be made avail­able on the day of the elec­tion. How­ev­er, none were giv­en. Ramjits­ingh said he re­ceived com­plaints from the North and East about the ab­sence of lists. Ramjits­ingh said the elec­tions should have been de­ferred un­til ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties were sort­ed out. Ramjits­ingh said he re­ceived re­ports that elec­tion agents for can­di­dates were go­ing in­to vot­ing booths with vot­ers and as­sist­ing them to mark the bal­lot pa­per.

Staff work­ing at the Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment School al­so grum­bled that they had to use tiny fur­ni­ture from the in­fant class­es that were de­signed to seat five-year-old chil­dren. Fazal Karim, ad­vis­er to the elec­tions com­mit­tee, said he was on tour with Toolsie Sama­roo and Ran­jit Ram­nar­ine, two oth­er mem­bers of the elec­tions com­mit­tee to var­i­ous cen­tres in Trinidad. He said ques­tions and con­cerns raised would be con­veyed to Kem­c­hand Ram­dath, head of the elec­tions com­mit­tee.

Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, who vot­ed at the Ch­agua­nas Gov­ern­ment School, said he found vot­ing to be a very a sim­ple and straight­for­ward ex­er­cise.