An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin yes­ter­day as­sured the pub­lic and the vis­it­ing Cari­com and Com­mon­wealth ob­serv­er teams that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) will have se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures in place to guard against any po­ten­tial threat or pos­si­ble dis­rup­tion of Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion process.

Ben­jamin com­ment came a day af­ter he re­vealed the TTPS had in­tel­li­gence of an al­leged plot to dis­rupt the elec­tion process.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter meet­ings with the Cari­com and Com­mon­wealth ob­serv­er teams, Ben­jamin said the vis­i­tors al­so en­quired about the threat.

“They (elec­tion ob­servers) want­ed to know what we put in place, based on re­ports in the me­dia in re­la­tion to what was said about the po­lit­i­cal at­mos­phere and the cli­mate at this time,” he said.

He added, “We ex­plained to them that we have in­for­ma­tion/in­tel­li­gence that sug­gests cer­tain things are be­ing planned which we be­lieve are con­cern­ing to us. We as­sured them that we are look­ing in­to every piece of in­tel­li­gence gath­ered so far, as we ex­pect to have a free and fair elec­tion.”

Ben­jamin and his team met with each ob­serv­er group sep­a­rate­ly in his of­fice at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, with each meet­ing last­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 75 min­utes.

While he avoid­ed com­ment­ing di­rect­ly on the dis­rup­tions they were an­tic­i­pat­ing, Ben­jamin said, “Vot­er sup­pres­sion is one of the things we are look­ing at, es­pe­cial­ly in the mar­gin­al ar­eas.

“We are go­ing to be look­ing at these mar­gin­al ar­eas very se­ri­ous­ly. We are al­ready putting strate­gies in place to deal with any form of dis­rup­tion from any in­di­vid­ual, gang or group that might want to en­gage in such prac­tices.

“We fur­ther as­sured them that there would be an in­creased po­lice pres­ence, along with tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions and joint army and po­lice pa­trols to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty through­out the elec­tion day.”

Among the mea­sures to be im­ple­ment­ed is an in­crease in man­pow­er re­sources in mar­gin­al seats, in­clud­ing To­co/San­gre Grande; San Fer­nan­do West; Moru­ga/Table­land; St Joseph; Tu­na­puna; La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro; and To­ba­go East.

He said they were con­fi­dent their strate­gies will be ad­e­quate, not­ing they were con­tin­u­ing to train of­fi­cers in crowd han­dling; de-es­ca­la­tion; and on list of elec­toral of­fences ahead of April 28. In ad­di­tion, Ben­jamin said they will be util­is­ing tech­nol­o­gy to “mon­i­tor every pos­si­ble area across both is­lands to en­sure the process is vi­o­lence free.”

Po­lice of­fi­cials al­so promised to pay ex­tra at­ten­tion to the head­quar­ters of po­lit­i­cal par­ties at the close of the polls, as emo­tions are ex­pect­ed to run high as the re­sults are tal­lied and an­nounced.

Ben­jamin urged all cit­i­zens to “al­low the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process to take place with­out any hic­cups” and “with in­tegri­ty and fair­ness as T&T has al­ways been known for.”

“We don’t ex­pect any­thing else but we are say­ing that there will be a ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to any­one or any­thing that seeks to ham­per the process,” he said.

On Tues­day, Ben­jamin an­nounced the au­thor­i­ties had re­ceived “cer­tain in­tel­li­gence” sug­gest­ing a pos­si­ble dis­rup­tion was be­ing planned.