Ali­cia Llanos

Chair­man of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Nor­bert Mas­son says the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion has come like a thief in the night.

Mas­son was speak­ing yes­ter­day at the dis­tri­b­u­tion of writs of elec­tion to re­turn­ing EBC of­fi­cers at Kam­po Restau­rant, Ch­agua­nas. He said: "Some of you may re­mem­ber the fore­bod­ing words of the first Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go many years ago when in re­fer­ring to a pend­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tion said 'it will come like a thief in the night.' "No truer words could be said of the gen­er­al elec­tion 2010, and the jolt­ing re­minder that we in the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion must al­ways be in a state pre­pared­ness, 'to be ready like Fred­die' as the say­ing goes." Mas­son said when he ad­dressed re­turn­ing of­fi­cers at the dis­tri­b­u­tion of writs of the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, he ref­er­enced the re­volv­ing-bal­lot scam as­so­ci­at­ed with spe­cial vot­ing.

He said in re­sponse EBC took ac­tion to mod­i­fy the pro­ce­dure of spe­cial vot­ing, which en­tailed the avoid­ance of mail­ing spe­cial bal­lot pa­pers. Mas­son said the EBC re­ceived a draft of new rules. How­ev­er, he said, due to the snap elec­tion they could not be put in­to ef­fect. He re­mind­ed staff do­ing train­ing, "to pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to the fact that since in the ex­ist­ing arrange­ment the bal­lot pa­pers would have been marked with the ini­tial let­ters of the re­turn­ing of­fi­cers who is­sued them in the first place, it be­hoves the elec­tion of­fi­cer in the charge of the bal­lot box." Mas­son said to the re­turn­ing of­fi­cers the EBC was aware of the "enor­mi­ty of the task you have un­der­tak­en to per­form."

He re­mind­ed them of the part they played in up­hold­ing democ­ra­cy in T&T.

Mas­son said: "Be strength­ened by the re­al­i­sa­tion that you con­sti­tute, as a group, one of the main pil­lars, one of the prin­ci­pal guardians of our democ­ra­cy." He closed his ad­dress say­ing: "I end by call­ing on all of you to af­firm your loy­al­ty to the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go and to jus­ti­fy your ap­point­ment to the high of­fice of re­turn­ing of­fi­cer.