Sascha Wil­son

UNC mem­bers head­ing to the vot­ing sta­tions to­day must be vig­i­lant be­cause the elec­tion ma­chin­ery has been rigged. This is the claim of UNC Sen­a­tor Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit who is con­test­ing the post of deputy po­lit­i­cal leader on Siparia MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's slate. Chal­leng­ing mem­bers of the Mem­ber­ship Com­mit­tee to dis­pute her claim, Ou­dit said they have tam­pered with the mem­ber­ship list and im­port­ed vot­ers. Speak­ing at Per­sad-Bisses­sar's fi­nal cam­paign meet­ing in Pe­nal last Fri­day night, she said, "I have been doc­u­ment­ing over the last two days the mem­ber­ship list. What they did in the first case, they took thou­sands of peo­ple's names from the mem­ber­ship list and they have since re­placed it."

An 'im­port­ed vot­er', she ex­plained, "comes in with a pre-stamped bal­lot pa­per in his back pock­et. He goes to the polling sta­tion and gets a bal­lot pa­per, a blank one. He goes be­hind the booth and he pulls out the pre-stamped pa­per and he sticks that in the box and he comes out with the blank one." Ou­dit said she was well aware of how po­lit­i­cal elec­tions could be com­pro­mised since she had worked in four elec­tions. "Those per­sons who come back out with the blank pa­per, is on­ly then that they get their pay­ment," she said. She warned sup­port­ers that many of them may not be able vote to­day. She urged neu­tral can­di­date ob­servers, pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers and all mem­bers to be vig­i­lant. She ad­vised them to make a list of dis­crep­an­cies and en­sure the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer pre­pares a 'state­ment of poll' in the ac­cu­rate man­ner.