As the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress con­tin­ues to chal­lenge the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion re­sults, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is again ac­cus­ing their po­lit­i­cal ri­vals of de­lib­er­ate­ly at­tempt­ing to slow down the process.

At a press brief­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert claimed the Op­po­si­tion was mere­ly mak­ing claims of vot­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties to con­vince its sup­port­ers that it didn’t lose the elec­tion.

He de­scribed their chal­lenge as very dis­hon­est and de­ceit­ful.

“We’ve nev­er had any­thing like this in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­fore. Nev­er,” a be­mused Im­bert said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at Bal­isi­er House called to ad­dress the UNC’s de­ci­sion to con­test the re­sults in five mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies.

The UNC has or­dered re­counts in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do West, To­co/San­gre Grande and Tu­na­puna.

He added, “I’ve had cause to write a let­ter to the chair­man of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion about the count, about the at­tempts of dis­rup­tion of the re­counts by the UNC.”

Ac­cord­ing to Im­bert, who suc­cess­ful­ly re­tained the Diego Mar­tin North East seat, he urged the EBC’s chair­man to pro­tect the com­mis­sion’s re­turn­ing of­fi­cers and the in­tegri­ty of the count­ing process.

De­spite the UNC’s nu­mer­ous claims of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, Im­bert said it was is im­pos­si­ble to rig an elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The los­ing can­di­dates are at­tempt­ing to dis­rupt the process in every pos­si­ble way,” Im­bert said.

List­ing some of the UNC chal­lenges, he said one can­di­date had ques­tioned the sig­na­tures of pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers on the bal­lot pa­pers, while an­oth­er claimed he couldn’t see the ini­tials on the bal­lot. A third, he said, pur­port­ed that a group of po­lice of­fi­cers stole bal­lot box­es from a polling sta­tion and kept it at a po­lice sta­tion. Seek­ing to have the claim clar­i­fied, he said he asked Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith to in­ves­ti­gate.

Read­ing from an of­fi­cial re­port, he said, “A thor­ough and com­pre­hen­sive search of the sta­tion and its sur­round­ings, which he did in the com­pa­ny of oth­er of­fi­cers, no bal­lot box­es were found or se­cured on the sta­tion com­pound.

“The re­turn­ing of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ed that all bal­lot box­es for that lo­ca­tion were present and on-site.”

Im­bert said the sit­u­a­tion had gone from the sub­lime to the ridicu­lous.

In the St Joseph seat, he said los­ing UNC can­di­date Ahloy Hunt was chal­leng­ing every bal­lot, re­sult­ing in a par­tic­u­lar­ly slow re­count process. Be­cause of the de­lay, he claimed not a sin­gle bal­lot box re­count was com­plet­ed on the first day.

“If they go like that, it will take two months. What is wrong with these peo­ple? Are they try­ing to give Trinidad and To­ba­go a bad name?” Im­bert con­test­ed.

De­spite his con­cerns, Im­bert ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s abil­i­ty to car­ry out the re­count­ing process in an ex­pe­di­tious man­ner. He es­ti­mat­ed that by the end of this week­end, or by ear­ly next week, the process could be com­plet­ed.

Im­bert al­so de­nied sug­ges­tions that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had in­side in­for­ma­tion about the elec­tion’s re­sults on Mon­day.

Fol­low­ing Row­ley’s de­c­la­ra­tion that the PNM had won the elec­tion 22-19 on Mon­day night, the UN had ques­tioned the tim­ing of the vic­to­ry speech, say­ing it seemed Row­ley had in­side in­for­ma­tion.

Laugh­ing off the sug­ges­tions, how­ev­er, Im­bert said like the UNC, the PNM was get­ting re­sults from in­di­vid­u­als sta­tioned at polling sta­tions to wit­ness and col­lect state­ments of the polls. For the process to be rigged, he main­tained every­one, in­clud­ing op­po­si­tion and EBC rep­re­sen­ta­tives, would have to be part of the con­spir­a­cy.