Richard Lord

Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Jack Warn­er, is call­ing for an ur­gent meet­ing of the par­ty's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive to dis­cuss al­leged elec­tion ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties. Warn­er's call was made in his third let­ter in re­cent days to the chair­man of the UNC's Elec­tions Com­mit­tee, Kelvin Ram­dath. Warn­er said the elec­tions process con­tained "many ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and dis­crep­an­cies." He said it was "shroud­ed in mys­tery and ob­scu­ri­ty and cloud­ed with am­bi­gu­i­ty and doubt."

The elec­tions are sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 24. Warn­er said mem­ber­ship ap­pli­ca­tions, which were sub­mit­ted be­fore the De­cem­ber 18 dead­line, "ap­pear to have been re­ject­ed as they do not ap­pear on the list." Warn­er al­so is claim­ing in his let­ter, dat­ed yes­ter­day, that pri­or to the pro­vi­sion­al list sub­mit­ted on Tues­day, Ch­agua­nas West had a mem­ber­ship of 1,124. The new list said there were 1,444, an in­crease of 320 mem­bers. Warn­er said that fig­ure was "im­pos­si­ble when one con­sid­ers the mo­bil­i­sa­tion ef­forts and the new ap­pli­ca­tions sub­mit­ted by Ch­agua­nas West con­stituents in 2009." (RL)