Khara Per­sad

In a heat­ed elec­tion sea­son, there's al­most no es­cape for us cit­i­zens from the re­lent­less, in­va­sive, ex­as­per­at­ing yet some­times catchy songs, jin­gles, and ad­ver­tise­ments that po­lit­i­cal par­ties use in an at­tempt to win votes, or re­al­ly brain­wash vot­ers.But ra­dio and tele­vi­sion weren't the on­ly chan­nels be­ing over-used and abused. Just look around, and not even walls, lamp posts or elec­tric­i­ty poles were safe in this "vote for me" time of year.Overnight, some streets and com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try trans­formed in­to some­thing sim­i­lar to the walls of a teenage girl's bed­room, but in­stead of co­pi­ous boy band posters, there were dozens up­on dozens of can­di­date por­traits and ban­ners star­ing you in the face, will­ing you to put your X next to their names on the bal­lot.

But is this al­lowed? Yes and no.

Tech­ni­cal­ly, yes, be­cause it's part of the cam­paign­ing process and there's a stip­u­la­tion from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on their re­moval.A source at the EBC ex­plained it's not an il­le­gal prac­tice by the com­mis­sion's stan­dards, and "it's all part of the cam­paign­ing."What is il­le­gal is leav­ing those ads up on the day of elec­tions.Shelly Dolabaille, com­mu­ni­ca­tions of­fi­cer at the EBC, said, how­ev­er, that rule on­ly ap­plies to posters and oth­er cam­paign­ing ma­te­r­i­al that are with­in 100 yards of a polling sta­tion.Posters and ban­ners have to be re­moved be­fore the day of elec­tions, or the peo­ple who put them up could be charged, Dolabaille said.Here's where the tech­ni­cal no comes in.As for the rest of it, out­side the 100-yard lim­it, there's no law in place to have them tak­en down by those who put them up–whether on pri­vate or pub­lic prop­er­ty.

At­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram ex­plained that for the most part, charges could be laid against peo­ple who put up posters on peo­ple's walls–if there is re­sult­ing dam­age to the prop­er­ty."If you stick some­thing like a poster and the own­er has to pay to fix their wall and so on, that could be a 'ma­li­cious dam­age to prop­er­ty' charge," he said by phone. He said there must be ac­tu­al dam­age to the wall.To a hy­po­thet­i­cal ques­tion about whether a per­son could be in trou­ble for stick­ing up posters on the wall out­side Gulf City Mall, Gulf View, for ex­am­ple, Rati­ram said that could be tres­pass­ing.He ex­plained there was noth­ing spe­cif­ic in the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, so there was noth­ing de­fin­i­tive to say in terms of what was al­lowed and what was pro­hib­it­ed. He said sim­ply that there was a gen­er­al of­fence of dam­age to prop­er­ty."At elec­tion time, every can­di­date wants to cam­paign and ad­ver­tise him­self as much as pos­si­ble. So I think it is in­evitable to have posters be­ing af­fixed to var­i­ous places and var­i­ous things. It has be­come part of our elec­tion cul­ture," he said, adding that he doesn't see that chang­ing or po­lit­i­cal par­ties break­ing the habit.

Rati­ram be­lieved it was a harm­less prac­tice, un­less posters and oth­er ma­te­r­i­al were be­ing af­fixed to pri­vate prop­er­ty with­out own­ers' con­sent.He added that even though there was no law in place to force par­ties to re­move their ad­ver­tise­ments post-elec­tion, they should be mo­ti­vat­ed to do so any­way."I think every po­lit­i­cal par­ty that does that has a moral du­ty at the very least to re­move these posters."Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at T&T Elec­tric Com­pa­ny (T&TEC) Annabelle Bras­nell said it was il­le­gal to post any sig­nage, po­lit­i­cal or not, on its elec­tric­i­ty poles."T&TEC poles are pri­vate prop­er­ty," she said via tele­phone.Even though it is il­le­gal, Rati­ram in­di­cat­ed there was no ac­tu­al of­fence re­lat­ed to stick­ing posters on the elec­tric­i­ty poles with­in the T&TEC Act.The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) al­so in­di­cat­ed that there was no leg­is­la­tion by the au­thor­i­ty about post­ing or re­mov­ing and dis­pos­ing of po­lit­i­cal posters.

Speak­ing out

For­mer San Fer­nan­do may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali called on his Face­book page last Fri­day for all po­lit­i­cal par­ties who were seek­ing City Hall to:"Keep your cam­paigns clean and clean up all posters and ban­ners af­ter the elec­tion. Keep your city clean be­cause win or lose we all have to live here af­ter."In a sim­i­lar press re­lease, Mu­radali made an ap­peal to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties "to re­move all posters and ban­ners" af­ter Mon­day's lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions.He said: "It is im­por­tant that young peo­ple are taught how to keep our com­mu­ni­ties and city clean, and that goes as well for our lead­ers and those as­pir­ing for pub­lic of­fice. I do hope that af­ter the elec­tion all po­lit­i­cal par­ties re­move all the posters and ban­ners that have been placed across the city. While I can­not say that the elec­tion cam­paign was al­ways clean, and some­times it even turned vul­gar and crass, I hope at least the city re­mains clean af­ter the elec­tion be­cause win or lose we all have to live here af­ter."

Gulf View res­i­dent Aruna Ma­haraj said the fact that the ban­ners go up at night, as op­posed to dur­ing the day, showed that peo­ple knew it was wrong, even if it isn't il­le­gal."We ex­pect it and ac­cept it," she said, adding it has be­come an un­sight­ly part of her com­mu­ni­ty.An Ari­ma res­i­dent, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said the posters de­face walls, and it was "too much all over the place.""Some­times peo­ple go and de­face the posters them­selves, mak­ing it of­fen­sive to chil­dren too," she said.For­mer Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing did not be­lieve the ac­tu­al post­ing of cam­paign ma­te­r­i­al in com­mu­ni­ties was a prob­lem, but they should be re­moved af­ter­ward."I don't think it is a prob­lem, but I do be­lieve the po­lit­i­cal par­ties have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, that once the elec­tion is over, to take ap­pro­pri­ate steps to en­sure that they take down their posters and clean up the mess they make," he said.He added that prac­tice rarely hap­pened, be­cause po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions were "not as re­spon­si­ble as they ought to be."

A Palmyra res­i­dent, wish­ing to re­main un­named, said those posters end up re­main­ing up for years af­ter elec­tions."It's un­sight­ly, they could use the ra­dio and TV,"When asked if it was fair to lim­it can­di­dates to those chan­nels on­ly, he said: "You can't go any­where with­out hear­ing or see­ing an ad. They com­ing around to shake your hand in front your house, we don't need to see their pic­tures every day too."One Bel­mont res­i­dent said a ban­ner op­po­site her home had been tak­en down by the time she got home on Mon­day af­ter­noon.Dolabaille said that as the St Joseph by-elec­tion ap­proach­es on No­vem­ber 4, she hoped par­ties re­mem­bered the rule about re­mov­ing cam­paign posters with­in the stip­u­lat­ed dis­tance, and would abide by the EBC guide­line."That can­vass­ing is against the law. In this par­tic­u­lar pe­ri­od, par­ties have to be ex­treme­ly care­ful. It's very im­por­tant to take them down on time in the St Joseph area, once it falls with­in 100 yards."

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi said last Fri­day, the par­ty in­tend­ed to abide by the rules of the EBC to re­move in­signia with­in the stip­u­lat­ed dis­tance of polling sta­tions."The PNM has been do­ing this for 57 years, and we've nev­er made news yet," he joked, say­ing he was boast­ing that the "PNM is the most or­gan­ised and pre­pared par­ty pos­si­ble.""Every­body knows what they need to...And we in­tend to com­ply ful­ly with the law."Oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties did not re­turn calls about whether they re­moved posters or planned to.