For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj is in Grena­da lead­ing a team of lo­cal and re­gion­al lawyers mon­i­tor­ing elec­tion day pro­ceed­ings on be­half of the op­po­si­tion New Na­tion­al Par­ty (NNP).

Ma­haraj told T&T Guardian late yes­ter­day the team has been meet­ing with polling of­fi­cers and oth­er elec­tion-day func­tionar­ies to en­sure there are no ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties. He is one of six T&T lawyers in the coun­try work­ing along­side an­oth­er 15 Grena­di­an and Caribbean at­tor­neys with­out charge.

"This is not based on any sus­pi­cion," Ma­haraj said from his of­fice in Grena­da. "We are do­ing this, pro bono, on be­half of the peo­ple of Grena­da ... It all has to do with the right to vote."

Ma­haraj said he and his team were in­vit­ed by NNP leader, Dr Kei­th Mitchell. He added that his would not be in con­flict with the work of ob­serv­er mis­sions from the Com­mon­wealth, the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS).

The rul­ing Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress (NDC) won 11 of the coun­try's 15 seats in par­lia­ment in the 2008 elec­tion.There are 62,000 vot­ers on the list of reg­is­tered elec­tors. This fol­lowed an ex­ten­sive vot­er reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion process which took the list down from the 70,800 per­sons reg­is­tered for the last elec­tion.