Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties and an­a­lysts have ex­pressed grave con­cerns with the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) progress on its Na­tion­al Field Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Ex­er­cise (NFVE).

This has led to some ac­cu­sa­tions that the com­mis­sion, which should be an in­de­pen­dent or­gan­i­sa­tion, is giv­ing the per­cep­tion that it is in col­lu­sion with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

On Wednes­day, the EBC, which is led by chief elec­tions of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope, ad­mit­ted to Guardian Me­dia that the vot­ers’ lists in just over half (23) of the con­stituen­cies will be com­plet­ed by ear­ly 2025 through the NFVE, which be­gan in mid-2023. The EBC did not ex­plain why on­ly 23 seats out of 41 were tar­get­ed nor the ra­tio­nale be­hind se­lect­ing those 23.

An im­por­tant func­tion of the NFVE is to cre­ate an up-to-date List of Elec­tors, which would be in align­ment with the EBC’s man­date of con­duct­ing ef­fi­cient, free and fair elec­tions.

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith said, “The ac­cu­ra­cy and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the elec­toral process are the cor­ner­stones of democ­ra­cy. A com­pre­hen­sive and time­ly ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the vot­ers’ list is crit­i­cal, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies where every vote car­ries sig­nif­i­cant weight. How­ev­er, with ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed for on­ly 23 of the 41 con­stituen­cies by Jan­u­ary 2025, many crit­i­cal ar­eas, in­clud­ing Aranguez/St Joseph, where the NTA’s po­lit­i­cal leader is con­test­ing, re­main un­touched. Even mi­nor dis­crep­an­cies in the vot­ers’ list could have dis­pro­por­tion­ate con­se­quences.”

Grif­fith al­so crit­i­cised the Fi­nance Min­is­ter for not pro­vid­ing ad­e­quate fund­ing to the EBC to com­plete the ex­er­cise. The com­mis­sion high­light­ed this as one of the hur­dles it faces in fin­ish­ing the NFVE.

Mean­while, Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) leader Wat­son Duke lament­ed that the sit­u­a­tion has the po­ten­tial to change his per­cep­tion of the EBC.

“The EBC has al­ways been tout­ed as an agent of the PNM. I re­fused to be­lieve that. How­ev­er, when I con­sid­er the im­por­tance of this elec­tion and the me­an­der­ings and toy­ing around of the EBC with 23 out of 41 seats, I am con­fused as to whether or not it holds any truth that the EBC is an agent of the PNM,” Duke said.

Duke, who pledged to an­nounce his par­ty’s strat­e­gy for the up­com­ing elec­tion in the new year, said the EBC had suf­fi­cient time to do its work. He is now call­ing for the EBC to halt its NFVE for the sake of fair­ness.

“It is fright­ful, it is dan­ger­ous, and it looks very ques­tion­able and sus­pi­cious. It would be bet­ter for the EBC not to tin­ker with those 23 out of 41 seats, leave every­thing as is and let’s go to the polls and let the best man win. Be­cause at such a last hour, whoso­ev­er wins the elec­tions when we look at the trends, we would be able to say that this vic­to­ry is not man-made, this vic­to­ry was EBC made,” Duke ad­vised.

On Thurs­day, Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the EBC query­ing its ra­tio­nale and cri­te­ria for se­lect­ing the 23 seats, among oth­er things. How­ev­er, the EBC promised a re­sponse ear­ly next week.

Mean­while, the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), which has de­clared it­self an al­ly of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), be­lieves the na­tion should fo­cus on the EBC’s sit­u­a­tion.

“This sounds like rig­ging bac­cha­nal, and we need to get in front of this as a na­tion. We are in a very se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion here now be­cause sus­pi­cions are go­ing to be raised as to why those con­stituen­cies were cho­sen and what are they hop­ing to ac­com­plish in 23 of them that they can­not do in 41?” PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der said.

Adding the PEP be­lieves the EBC should be de­cen­tralised, he said, “Make each con­stituen­cy re­spon­si­ble for their cit­i­zens and then cre­ate a mas­ter list. And I be­lieve this is a ma­jor is­sue that should be ad­dressed be­fore the elec­tions and some­thing every cit­i­zen should be talk­ing about.”

But it’s not on­ly po­lit­i­cal par­ties who be­lieve the EBC should be do­ing bet­ter.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­dera Sage­wan said she could not fault par­ties for be­ing sus­pi­cious of the EBC’s con­duct.

“I think it’s an ab­solute­ly fair claim by the po­lit­i­cal par­ties to sug­gest that the EBC is act­ing in the best in­ter­est of the gov­ern­ing par­ty. I say this large­ly be­cause it’s been five years since the last elec­tion, that’s a lot of time, and the EBC is scram­bling at the ninth hour. We have an elec­tion that is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due with­in a year, and it is now scram­bling to be able to fin­ish this ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise and this leaves a lot to be de­sired,” Sage­wan said.

She added, “This trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty is not just for the po­lit­i­cal par­ties, but the EBC has an oblig­a­tion to the peo­ple of the coun­try. The en­tire elec­torate has a right to know what the EBC is do­ing be­cause at the end of the day, gov­er­nance is for the peo­ple and it is re­al­ly the peo­ple who should have a right to ac­cess to this in­for­ma­tion. No in­sti­tu­tion like the EBC should op­er­ate in se­cre­cy.”

Al­so con­tact­ed, Dr Shane Mo­hammed said while he does not be­lieve the EBC is a so-called PNM en­ti­ty, it should be in a bet­ter po­si­tion at this stage.

“The EBC owes the pop­u­la­tion the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and du­ty to do its job ac­cord­ing to the law and ac­cord­ing to its man­date. And when an elec­tion is im­mi­nent, I think it is on­ly right that all 41 con­stituen­cies would have had due process and work done in them to as­cer­tain all that falls un­der its re­mit,” Mo­hammed ex­plained.

The EBC has main­tained that al­though it is not yet fin­ished with its NFVE, it is ready for a gen­er­al elec­tion when­ev­er it is called.