Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

?Cries of elec­tion rig­ging came from sev­er­al UNC mem­bers yes­ter­day as they flocked in their num­bers to cast their bal­lots at var­i­ous polling booths. Some of the mem­bers said the process was so flawed that the elec­tion should be con­sid­ered null and void. Oth­ers pre­dict­ed that there would be le­gal chal­lenges when the re­sults were re­vealed. At the Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School, con­fronta­tion broke out as sev­er­al sup­port­ers could not find their names on the vot­ing list, de­spite be­ing con­firmed at Rien­zi Com­plex. San­dra Sookoo and her hus­band Ajod­ha Sookoo said they were list­ed to vote in the San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy by of­fi­cials at Rien­zi Com­plex, but when they ar­rived at the sta­tion, they were told their names were not on the list.

Sookoo said: "There is one list on the out­side say­ing we are down to vote but when we went in­side they are say­ing our names are not in the list so we can­not vote." An­oth­er mem­ber, Ramesh Kara­pan said the stamp in­side the vot­ing sta­tion was too big for the box­es on the bal­lot pa­per. He said if the pa­per was stamped out­side of the box, then it would be con­sid­ered void. He said af­ter rais­ing con­cerns, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer told him to use a pen to "X" the box. Life­time mem­ber Fran­cis Jaipauls­ingh said he was al­so de­nied his right. Show­ing up his life­time mem­ber­ship gold card, Jaipauls­ingh said he had been with the par­ty for years, yet when he went to cast his bal­lot, he was told that his name was knocked off the list. Jaipauls­ingh said he had an­tic­i­pat­ed prob­lems and had made time to go to Rien­zi Com­plex to en­sure that his name was on the list. He said he was shocked to know that he was be­ing de­nied his right.

Neil Dass al­so said that he was reg­is­tered at Rien­zi Com­plex in De­cem­ber and was told that he would be vot­ing at Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian School. How­ev­er, he said when he ar­rived, he was al­so turned away. Sim­i­lar cries were heard in Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Fyz­abad and Oropouche East. MP for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la Har­ry Par­tap said hun­dreds of peo­ple turned out to vote but many left dis­ap­point­ed. Sen­a­tor Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit who cam­paigned on be­half of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day was a sad day for sup­port­ers. She said there were more than 3,000 dis­crep­an­cies in the elec­toral process. Ou­dit ex­plained that some peo­ple's names and ad­dress­es were du­pli­cat­ed to vote in more than one con­stituen­cy. She said peo­ple could eas­i­ly use con­tact ce­ment to re­move the ink and go else­where to vote twice. Say­ing she hoped that the process could be chal­lenged legal­ly, Ou­dit said: "It seems there is no in­tegri­ty in this process...All of our con­cerns must be clar­i­fied." (RS)