Renu­ka Singh

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­demned what she calls the “reck­less com­ments” Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has made in re­la­tion to her par­ty’s call for re­counts in five con­stituen­cies.

“PM Row­ley is in­tent on con­tin­u­ing his dan­ger­ous trend of seek­ing to un­der­mine our coun­try’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ideals and cher­ished in­de­pen­dent le­gal in­sti­tu­tions, which ex­ist to pro­vide equal­i­ty, fair­ness and jus­tice for cit­i­zens. I am there­fore serv­ing no­tice on him that his dic­ta­to­r­i­al habit of at­tempt­ing to bul­ly and in­tim­i­date cit­i­zens will not be tol­er­at­ed by the UNC in any form,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a re­lease yes­ter­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said no leader of a democ­ra­cy should en­gage in this “per­sis­tent, de­vi­ous at­tempt to un­der­mine our con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions in any mat­ter, and es­pe­cial­ly one as se­ri­ous and sig­nif­i­cant as a Gen­er­al Elec­tion.”

“We will con­tin­ue to utilise any and every con­sti­tu­tion­al means avail­able to us to de­fend and pro­tect our coun­try’s cher­ished de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms and the sa­cred rights of our cit­i­zens,” she said.

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

In an in­ter­view on Wednes­day, Row­ley said the UNC was push­ing a dan­ger­ous nar­ra­tive by seek­ing the re­counts be­cause it was lead­ing their sup­port­ers to be­lieve that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was an il­le­git­i­mate gov­ern­ment and that the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion was stolen.

Yes­ter­day, los­ing UNC can­di­date for St Joseph Al­hoy Hunt said his lawyers found as many as 171 dis­crep­an­cies in a sin­gle polling sta­tion.

Po­lice are al­so cur­rent­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ing dumped polling cards found in the bush­es off Pin­to Road, Ari­ma.

Re­counts for the San Fer­nan­do West seat, where PNM in­cum­bent Faris Al-Rawi tri­umphed over the UNC’s Sean Sobers is al­so in its third day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was al­so “con­cerned” about the neg­a­tive so­cial me­dia com­ments from mem­bers of the pub­lic af­ter Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“It is with tremen­dous con­cern that I have not­ed the many neg­a­tive so­cial me­dia com­ments em­a­nat­ing from all seg­ments of the so­ci­ety in the af­ter­math of Mon­day’s con­tro­ver­sial Gen­er­al Elec­tions,” she said.

She said though peo­ple were “hurt and dis­ap­point­ed” over the re­sults, the call for fair­ness in an elec­tion is valid.

“Across the coun­try, many cit­i­zens have ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cerns over the fair­ness and trans­paren­cy of the vot­ing and over­all elec­tion process­es. These very valid con­cerns must not be tak­en light­ly, es­pe­cial­ly since Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley had bla­tant­ly re­fused to fol­low the long-es­tab­lished tra­di­tion of invit­ing for­eign ob­servers for the polls,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“The UNC is, there­fore, ful­fill­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty and man­date to en­sure that, as far as pos­si­ble, we en­sure that the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights of cit­i­zens to free and fair elec­tions were up­held.”

She al­so called on all cit­i­zens to work past this “painful time in the na­tion’s his­to­ry.”

“I know you are dis­ap­point­ed, hurt and an­gered, even, at the bla­tant dis­crep­an­cies in Mon­day’s elec­toral process but we must not let this get the bet­ter of us,” she said.

“We must not fos­ter any type of hate, di­vi­sive­ness and oth­er­wise un­pro­duc­tive dis­course on so­cial me­dia or else­where. Do not let our beloved na­tion’s long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of har­mo­ny, tol­er­ance and uni­ty be jeop­ar­dized at this time.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out the Row­ley for a re­sponse to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment but was un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.