Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) has been forced to re­ject a for­mer pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer from re­turn­ing to du­ty for the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, af­ter a video sur­faced with the woman en­dors­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). 

Dur­ing an in­ter­view with More TV on March 20, in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy of La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Alana Fred­er­ick was asked, “What is your hopes for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion com­ing up?” 

Sit­ting in her ve­hi­cle and hold­ing a PNM flag with Fos­ter Cum­mings’ name on it, Fred­er­ick replied, “Well ob­vi­ous­ly for PNM to come back in pow­er.” 

She was then asked what the par­ty could im­prove on, and Fred­er­ick ex­plained that more ground­work need­ed to be done. 

Fred­er­ick claimed the PNM’s can­di­date for La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro was a vis­i­ble MP who they see reg­u­lar­ly, be­fore she broke in­to the chant, “Great is the PNM and we will pre­vail!” 

The video was sent to EBC Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis, who ex­plained that cur­rent­ly there are no pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers for the April 28 elec­tion, as the process to se­lect those per­son­nel on­ly com­menced yes­ter­day. She, how­ev­er, con­firmed that Fred­er­ick did work with the EBC in the past as a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer and in dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ties and ap­plied to work again for this elec­tion. 

“Typ­i­cal­ly, any­one who has been iden­ti­fied as can­vass­ing on be­half of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty or en­gag­ing in cam­paign­ing in any way, once the EBC has the in­for­ma­tion, that per­son is not al­lowed to work on poll day. So, on this oc­ca­sion, Ms Fred­er­ick, hav­ing seen this video, she, of course, will not be al­lowed to work for the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion on poll day,” Nar­cis ex­plained. 

She added, “Thank­ful­ly, hav­ing seen this video, we have been able to take prompt ac­tion.” 

Nar­cis said Fred­er­ick was ad­vised, “that any fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion for pos­si­ble em­ploy­ment with the EBC re­gard­ing the up­com­ing elec­tion has been ter­mi­nat­ed.” 

Nar­cis called on po­lit­i­cal par­ties to re­port any fur­ther in­ci­dents like this one. 

“I would like to take the op­por­tu­ni­ty to say to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties or mem­bers of the pub­lic who may be­come aware that prospec­tive poll day em­ploy­ees are can­vass­ing or cam­paign­ing on be­half of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty or in­de­pen­dent can­di­date, please in­form the re­spec­tive re­tain­ing of­fi­cers so that these per­sons can be with­drawn from work­ing on poll day,” she said. 

A pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is the man­ag­er of an as­signed polling sta­tion, and all com­plaints about the op­er­a­tions on polling day are to be re­port­ed to them. That per­son al­so has the au­thor­i­ty to re­move any per­son who be­haves in a dis­or­der­ly man­ner; tries to in­flu­ence an elec­tor to vote in a cer­tain man­ner; or in­ter­rupts the pro­ceed­ings from a polling sta­tion. 

But de­spite the EBC’s seem­ing­ly quick ac­tion, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not im­pressed. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia the EBC is a “to­tal cor­rupt­ed mess of an or­gan­i­sa­tion.” 

“This is the same EBC that re­fused to re­move ROs (re­turn­ing of­fi­cers) who were in­com­pe­tent dur­ing the nom­i­na­tion process. A lot of these of­fi­cials the EBC se­lect­ed for the elec­tion have no idea about the laws and rules. They are train­ing bi­ased and in­com­pe­tent per­sons for one week and send­ing them to over­see an elec­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­plained. 

On April 7, some UNC mem­bers held a meet­ing with the EBC, where they called for “clar­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty” ahead of the April 28 elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been crit­i­cal of the EBC in the past and legal­ly chal­lenged the body in 2015, call­ing for the re­sults in six mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies to be de­clared null and void af­ter vot­ing was ex­tend­ed by one hour due to in­clement weath­er. 

But Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith was pleased with the EBC’s ac­tions yes­ter­day. 

“Since we formed the NTA, we have seen that the EBC has been very sup­port­ive, neu­tral, im­par­tial and pro­fes­sion­al, so this year is a typ­i­cal ex­am­ple to show that the EBC is do­ing what is re­quired and it is not in the con­trol of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” Grif­fith said.

“And I think it is very dis­turb­ing when po­lit­i­cal par­ties try to ac­cuse in­de­pen­dent bod­ies of be­ing bi­ased and af­fil­i­at­ed with oth­er par­ties, mak­ing wild ac­cu­sa­tions with­out any ev­i­dence.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought re­spons­es from the PNM and Pa­tri­ot­ic Front but was un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.