One of the three can­di­dates who con­test­ed for lead­er­ship of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) in yes­ter­day’s elec­tions, says the lack of bal­lot pa­pers at two polling sta­tions may have hurt his chances of win­ning. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, leader of team Unit­ed Pub­lic Of­fi­cers Oral Saun­ders said the lack of bal­lot pa­pers at the Pe­nal and Princes Town polling sta­tions so­lid­i­fied his pre­vi­ous call for the elec­tions to be su­per­vised by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion. 

“We would have said that an elec­tion of this mag­ni­tude de­serves to be run by per­sons who are com­pe­tent, per­sons who are ex­pe­ri­enced, and in our opin­ion, per­sons who have a neu­tral ap­proach to this elec­tion. Hence the rea­son why we would have rec­om­mend­ed, my­self per­son­al­ly and oth­ers in the gen­er­al coun­cil, we would have rec­om­mend­ed that the EBC be charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of con­duct­ing this elec­tion,” he said. 

He added, “I am be­ing bom­bard­ed by calls across Trinidad and more so South of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and even with polling agents stat­ing things at polling sta­tions that should be of grave con­cern to the democ­ra­cy of the PSA. I am say­ing for the na­tion­al pub­lic and more so PSA mem­bers, this is an elec­tion that was far from fair.” 

In­cum­bent PSA leader Leroy Bap­tiste did not con­test the elec­tion.

How­ev­er, in­cum­bent first vice-pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, who leads team Sacro­sanct, said the is­sues Saun­ders high­light­ed were not af­fect­ing his sup­port­ers on­ly, as he sug­gest­ed. 

Thomas said she was prepar­ing to lead the union for some time, hav­ing spent al­most two terms on the ex­ec­u­tive. Asked about her plans for the union, should she win, Thomas said an “ab­solute to­tal fight” for work­ers. 

“Work­ers have not been treat­ed as they ought to. We are all fa­mil­iar with the four per cent, it is some­thing that we’ve all been fight­ing for. My po­si­tion is that work­ers de­serve a liv­ing wage, and should I be elect­ed that is what I will be ad­vanc­ing on be­half of my mem­ber­ship.” 

Third con­tender Nixon Cal­len­der, who leads Team Sen­tinel, said his first call, should he win, will be to set­tle all ne­go­ti­a­tions, but did not say if this meant ac­cept­ing the four per cent of­fer when asked. He said he would “sum­mon” CPO Dr Daryl Din­di­al and re­sume ne­go­ti­a­tions. 

“We will be ne­go­ti­at­ing again. What we saw hap­pen there, pre­vi­ous­ly, there was no ne­go­ti­a­tions there. It was sim­ply the CPO did not know who was sit­ting down in front of him. They didn’t know if it was a politi­cian or if it was a trade union­ist. With the change in the ad­min­is­tra­tion, we would be go­ing to the CPO as the recog­nised ma­jor­i­ty union and noth­ing else,” Cal­len­der said. 

All three ex­pressed a strong be­lief in their chances of win­ning the ma­jor­i­ty vote of some 10,000 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers. Asked what their plans are, should they lose, both Cal­len­der and Saun­ders warned it would be a dark day for the PSA, while Thomas said she would ac­cept the de­ci­sion and move on.