Sascha Wil­son

One of the can­di­dates vy­ing in to­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion was up in arms yes­ter­day af­ter his name was wrong­ly rep­re­sent­ed in an Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) ad­ver­tise­ment in the dai­ly news­pa­pers.

Valmi­ki Ram­s­ingh, leader of The Na­tion­al Par­ty com­plained that the er­ror was made in the EBC’s No­tice of Tak­ing A Poll ad­ver­tise­ment.

In­stead of Ram­s­ingh, he said the ad­ver­tise­ment had Ram­per­sad.

Ram­s­ingh is among five can­di­dates vy­ing for the San Fer­nan­do West seat. Beni­son Jages­sar of the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) who is al­so con­test­ing that seat com­plained that his sur­name was spelt wrong­ly with an ex­tra “g”.

He de­mand­ed an apol­o­gy and cor­rec­tion.

Ram­s­ingh said he con­tact­ed the EBC and was told that it was a ty­po­graph­i­cal er­ror.

He said they apol­o­gised and as­sured him that his cor­rect name ap­pears on the bal­lot pa­per.

He said the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy al­so as­sured him that his cor­rect name is on the bal­lot pa­per. While he un­der­stood the pace and vol­ume of the work, Ram­s­ingh said that should not be an ex­cuse.

“The high­est stan­dards are ex­pect­ed with this ex­er­cise see­ing that we have Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions every three years and Gen­er­al Elec­tions every five years. What if peo­ple have al­ready made up their mind that I dropped out... as my name is not there in the news­pa­pers... that’s lost votes! This has se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions es­pe­cial­ly in view of what tran­spired in Guyana,” he lament­ed. When con­tact­ed EBC’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Bob­bi Rogers ad­mit­ted that she made the ty­po­graph­i­cal er­ror but she as­sured that their cor­rect names are on the bal­lot pa­per.

Mean­while the leader of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DPTT), Steve Al­varez has al­so writ­ten to the EBC com­plain­ing that his par­ty’s name was left out of the EBC no­tice.

“In your news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ments of Sun­day Au­gust 9th on all three dai­ly news­pa­pers, un­der the ti­tle NO­TICE: Elec­tion Agents and Sub-agents 2020 Par­lia­men­tary Elec­tions, your ad­ver­tise­ment had the DPTT’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Valen­tine Al­varez list­ed un­der the par­ty THC. The De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Trinidad & To­ba­go (DPTT) is not men­tioned any­where in the ad­ver­tise­ment. This has re­sult­ed in tremen­dous con­cern and un­cer­tain­ty among the vot­ers of Moru­ga Table­land as they are un­sure that the DPTT is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion,” he said.

Al­varez added, “We in the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty are ex­treme­ly con­cerned about the reper­cus­sion of this ma­jor mis­take on the eve of a gen­er­al elec­tion and call for an im­me­di­ate cor­rec­tion in the me­dia. The re­sult­ing harm may have a very neg­a­tive im­pact on the re­sult of the elec­tion and we re­serve the right to take fur­ther ac­tion as may be nec­es­sary.”

Last week, Pro­gres­sive Par­ty leader, Nikoli Ed­wards had al­so writ­ten to the EBC com­plain­ing that his par­ty’s sym­bol was omit­ted from EBC doc­u­men­ta­tion.