Gail Alexan­der

Go out and ex­er­cise your right to vote – it’s safe!

This was last night’s de­c­la­ra­tion from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh, ahead of the start of to­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion vot­ing.

This be­gins at 6 am with long lines ex­pect­ed at polling sta­tions. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties ceased cam­paign­ing and pol­i­tick­ing at mid­night.

To­day’s poll, T&T’s 18th gen­er­al elec­tion, is an his­toric event, oc­cur­ring amid a sec­ond COVID wave. There was a to­tal of 279 cas­es up to yes­ter­day.

Ramk­er­rysingh’s launch­pad ad­dress fo­cused on guide­lines con­cern­ing the pan­dem­ic. He said the EBC con­sult­ed with or­gan­i­sa­tions to en­sure the process is sim­ple and com­plies with all pos­si­ble health guide­lines.

The EBC chief urged vot­ers to check their poll cards to en­sure where they will vote.

The EBC had to change some polling sta­tions to al­low for larg­er com­pounds to ac­com­mo­date the ex­pect­ed long lines caused by COVID-19 phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing pro­to­cols.

Those who didn’t get a poll card can check on­line or call EBC’s hot­lines.

He al­so urged vot­ers to go and vote ear­ly. Once peo­ple are still in line on a polling sta­tion’s com­pound when polls close at 6 pm, they’re still en­ti­tled to vote.

Ramk­er­rysingh ad­vised vot­ers to wear a mask, utilise phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing and sani­tise be­fore dip­ping a fin­ger in the elec­toral ink.

Cit­i­zens who are more vul­ner­a­ble should al­so in­form the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer of their con­di­tion and arrange­ments will be made for them.

He al­so ad­vised sup­port­ers not to push the bound­aries fol­lowed by pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers and po­lice.

“Once you do so the process will be quick,” he said.

“The EBC has a long proud his­to­ry in the con­duct of polls and Mon­day will be no dif­fer­ent,” Ramk­er­rysingh added.

There are 2,200 polling sta­tions over the 41 con­stituen­cies. Vot­ing ends at 6 pm.

The elec­torate stands at 1,134,136 - an in­crease from 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion elec­torate which was 1,082,279.

Spe­cial vot­ing for some 21,565 spe­cial elec­tors con­clud­ed at 3 pm yes­ter­day.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Griffth said po­lice will be out in force to­day and tonight - when re­sults be­gin to emerge - to en­sure the ex­er­cise goes smooth­ly.

Spe­cial watch will be on for breach of COVID-reg­u­la­tions at bars and around par­ty head of­fices.

The PNM, which held of­fice for the last five years with 23 seats, is tar­get­ting be­tween 23 and 25 seats. The UNC aims to in­crease its 18 seats of the last term to 25 al­so. There are 41 seats in to­tal.

A trend in re­sults is ex­pect­ed to de­vel­op from 9.30 pm.

The EBC will de­liv­er pre­lim­i­nary re­sults lat­er, af­ter the poll.

Mark Ramkerrysingh

Yes­ter­day’s fi­nal con­tin­gen­cies by par­ties for to­day’s ground game in­clud­ed cater­ing for the weath­er.

Last week week­end’s In­ter-Trop­i­cal Con­ver­gence Zone (ITCZ) placed a tem­po­rary damper on last Sat­ur­day’s mo­tor­cades by par­ties, and al­so some wrap-ups yes­ter­day by the UNC in south-west ar­eas.

Scat­tered show­ers are pro­ject­ed for to­day al­so. (See page 6)

Some PNM can­di­dates

vot­ed last week

PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley - who re­cent­ly dubbed to­day’s event a “Pan­dem­ic Elec­tion” - yes­ter­day ex­pressed con­cern at lack of ad­her­ence to COVID pro­to­cols dur­ing week­end mo­tor­cades.

He votes in West­moor­ings this morn­ing.

PNM of­fi­cials said elec­tion re­sults will be mon­i­tored from this evening at Bal­isi­er House - but due to the COVID pan­dem­ic, they were ask­ing sup­port­ers not to con­gre­gate there.

Sev­er­al PNM can­di­dates vot­ed last week as spe­cial elec­tors.

The PNM’s Moru­ga cam­paign team con­firmed can­di­date Win­ston Pe­ters vot­ed as a spe­cial elec­tor. The par­ty al­so sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed some can­di­dates vot­ed re­cent­ly as spe­cial elec­tors, but didn’t state who.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar votes at the Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian school be­tween 10 and 11 am, aides said.

This evening Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to be at her Siparia con­stituen­cy of­fice mon­i­tor­ing re­sults.

UNC of­fi­cials said re­sults will be mon­i­tored by the par­ty at the Cou­va Mul­ti-Pur­pose Hall.

Among the UNC’s can­di­dates, Sean Sobers (San Fer­nan­do West) votes at Mon Re­pos RC School by 6.30 am, Sad­dam Ho­sein (Barataria/San Juan) at 10 am at War­renville Pres­by­ter­ian School. Bar­ry Padarath (Princes Town) votes 8 am at the Cou­va An­gli­can School. Dr Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East) votes at 10.30 am at the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

More con­tes­tants than 2015

In 2015, when the PNM won, a to­tal of 127 can­di­dates con­test­ed that elec­tion for 17 po­lit­i­cal par­ties, with five peo­ple run­ning as in­de­pen­dents.

To­day’s elec­tion shares the fight among 150 can­di­dates from 19 par­ties and five In­de­pen­dent con­tes­tants. The PNM alone is field­ing a full slate of 41 can­di­dates. The UNC is con­test­ing in Trinidad’s 39 seats.

All eyes are on the bat­tle­ground con­stituen­cies of PNM-held Moru­ga/Table­land, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, To­ba­go East, San Fer­nan­do West and St Joseph.

Al­so, on UNC-held Ch­agua­nas East and Barataria/San Juan.

In the PNM ‘s man­i­festo, pre­sent­ed a week be­fore the polls, the par­ty cam­paigned on a Re­cov­ery Roadmap Plan to take T&T out of the eco­nom­ic dam­age caused by the pan­dem­ic.

The UNC pre­sent­ed an Eco­nom­ic Trans­for­ma­tion Plan pre­sent­ed in the 2020 Bud­get de­bate last Oc­to­ber and has re­worked it to cov­er COVID is­sues, adding fur­ther as­pects on COVID. The UNC made a uni­ty call to oth­ers al­so.

The MSJ, PEP and oth­er par­ties have al­so pro­duced pack­ages.

While plat­form con­tri­bu­tions have been fiery, the cam­paign in the COVID-re­strict­ed en­vi­ron­ment has been peace­ful. But there will be no in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers for the poll de­spite Op­po­si­tion calls for this.

Turnout key

At­ten­tion to­day will be on par­ties’ ground game and vot­er turnout, the lat­ter, es­pe­cial­ly in view of the COVID re­stric­tions.

In the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, the elec­torate was 1,082,279.

Vot­er turnout then was 67.27 per cent. To­tal votes cast were 734, 792. The PNM won 23 seats with 378,447 votes.

The UNC which got 290,066 votes won 18 seats in­clud­ing a COP seat in St Au­gus­tine.

To­day’s elec­tion is op­er­at­ing with EBC bound­ary changes in 12 of the 41 con­stituen­cies.

Two polling di­vi­sions were trans­ferred from Cou­va North to Cou­va South. Three To­co/San­gre Grande polling di­vi­sions went in­to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la. One Laven­tille West polling di­vi­sion went to Laven­tille East.

Two Port-of-Spain South polling di­vi­sions went in­to Port-of-Spain North and one polling di­vi­sion to Laven­tille West.

Two polling di­vi­sions were trans­ferred from San Fer­nan­do East to San Fer­nan­do West. One Oropouche East polling di­vi­sion was placed in Oropouche West.

The EBC hired 13,000 peo­ple to as­sist with the poll.

Po­lice watch­ing bars, par­ty head of­fices

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith said po­lice will be watch­ing for breach­es of COVID reg­u­la­tions as well as elec­tion rules.

He said, “Cit­i­zens need to be made re­mind­ed to keep 100 yards from polling sta­tions if they’re not go­ing to vote. We’ll al­so en­sure there’s no vot­er in­tim­i­da­tion or any­one try­ing to per­suade/can­vass vot­ers,” he said.

“Our radar al­so fo­cused on cer­tain parts of T&T. In the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty were be­ing per­pe­trat­ed in cer­tain ar­eas. We aim to en­sure there’s no re­peat. Over­all, our work doesn’t stop at 6 pm, it may just be­gin then ac­tu­al­ly when re­sults start ar­riv­ing.”

“We’ll be on alert for any ex­cess­es of cel­e­bra­tion or dis­ap­point­ment in and around wa­ter­ing holes and par­ties’ of­fices, which may vi­o­late laws or COVID reg­u­la­tions.”

He not­ed last week’s shut down of sev­er­al bars.

TO­DAY’S CON­TES­TANTS

• The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment 41

• The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress 39

• The Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty 28

• The Trinidad Hu­man­i­ty Cam­paign 7

• The New Na­tion­al Vi­sion 6

• The Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice 5

• The Con­gress of the Peo­ple 4

• The Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment 3

• The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots 2

• The Na­tion­al Coali­tion for Trans­for­ma­tion 2

• The Pro­gres­sive Par­ty 1

• The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty 1

• The De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go 1

• The Na­tion­wide Or­ga­ni­za­tion of We the Peo­ple 1

• The Un­rep­re­sent­ed Peo­ples Par­ty 1

• The Trinidad and To­ba­go De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Front 1

• The Na­tion­al Par­ty 1

• One To­ba­go Voice 1

• Five In­de­pen­dent can­di­dates - pre­sent­ing in Ch­agua­nas East, Moru­ga/Table­land St. Joseph and two in To­ba­go West.