Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is con­fi­dent the Star slate will shine bright­ly in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions. How­ev­er, she said this in­ter­nal elec­tion saw the low­est lev­el of cam­paign­ing.

She was speak­ing with re­porters at the polling sta­tion in Debe Sec­ondary School min­utes af­ter she vot­ed for her Star Team slate in the UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. “There was some overzeal­ous cam­paign­ing in some sta­tions. I am told MP (Rush­ton) Paray (Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots deputy po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date) went in­to a vot­ing sta­tion and re­fused to leave, ba­si­cal­ly ha­rass­ing and in­tim­i­dat­ing per­sons in that sta­tion,” she told re­porters.

Claim­ing that the mat­ter was raised with the Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, she said, “Even­tu­al­ly, he did leave, but he spent a very long time in the sta­tion, which is very in­ap­pro­pri­ate. This elec­tion, I’ve seen a lev­el of a kind of cam­paign­ing I’ve nev­er seen in any of our in­ter­nal elec­tions. It’s been—I don’t want to use any bad words—but it has been a very low lev­el of cam­paign­ing. We are all UNC at the end of the day; see what hap­pens.” Re­spond­ing to al­le­ga­tions by MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly that sup­port­ers of Star Slate had en­gaged in sim­i­lar be­hav­iour, she ad­mit­ted that in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, some of the Star Team out­side of the sta­tion and were asked to move.

“They moved. They did not stay as what hap­pened else­where,” she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was al­so some con­fu­sion re­gard­ing the vot­ers’ list, but the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer even­tu­al­ly got the mas­ter list that both sides agreed to use.

Asked whether she would ac­cept the re­sults if the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate won, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would, but she was con­fi­dent about her team’s vic­to­ry. Asked what would be the UL team’s fate go­ing for­ward, she said they (UL) would have to de­cide their next step. “To­mor­row (Sun­day), I will still be the leader of the UNC. To­day we have com­pe­ti­tion; to­mor­row we put on our boots and take on the re­al en­e­my. The re­al en­e­my is the PNM, and that is where we go next.”

The UNC po­lit­i­cal leader al­so an­tic­i­pat­ed that yes­ter­day’s vot­er turnout would be high­er than in the last in­ter­nal elec­tions in 2022. Just over 12,000 mem­bers vot­ed in the 2022 in­ter­nal elec­tions, the low­est so far.

Paray says Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tions bizarre

Ma­yaro MP and Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date, Rush­ton Paray, de­scribed as “bizarre” the al­le­ga­tions made against him by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Paray was re­spond­ing via What­sApp last evening to claims by Per­sad-Bisses­sar that he spent three hours in a polling sta­tion ha­rass­ing and in­tim­i­dat­ing peo­ple.

Paray led the UP slate late against Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Star Team in yes­ter­day’s UNC ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship elec­tions.

He said, “I have tak­en note of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s bizarre com­ments about my pres­ence at the polling sta­tion in Ma­yaro in to­day’s in­ter­nal elec­tions. It is un­for­tu­nate that Mrs Per­sad Bisses­sar should wrong­ly mis­char­ac­ter­ize my pres­ence at this sta­tion, es­pe­cial­ly as nu­mer­ous vot­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties were be­ing reg­is­tered at the said polling sta­tion.”

Paray said it was al­so iron­ic that Per­sad-Bisses­sar made those com­ments while stand­ing next to Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who was present at a polling sta­tion in Oropouche East, “where video footage shows ques­tion­able and even il­le­gal be­hav­iour tak­ing place.”

He said he would ad­dress “the nu­mer­ous se­ri­ous con­cerns doc­u­ment­ed by many UNC mem­bers” dur­ing these elec­tions as soon as the count­ing ends.”

In an ear­li­er in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Rio Claro Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School polling sta­tion, Paray ex­plained that he spent three hours in­side the sta­tion due to sev­er­al vot­ing ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties. Due to the lengthy de­lay, he said at least 25 to 40 peo­ple left the sta­tion.