“RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The re­count of bal­lot box­es in the San Fer­nan­do West, St Joseph and To­co/San­gre Grande seats start­ed yes­ter­day, even as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) an­nounced it was com­pil­ing a list of al­leged vot­er ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties to take to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the M Ram­per­sad Build­ing in San Fer­nan­do, UNC pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Ani­ta Haynes al­so re­it­er­at­ed that the par­ty had not yet con­ced­ed de­feat in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The move by the UNC forced Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to ten­ta­tive­ly set the in­agu­ra­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for Fri­day.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Weekes’ com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vis­er Cheryl Lal­la said, “Be­cause of the re­count/s, the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for the PM, AG and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters is now ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled for 9.30 am on Fri­day Au­gust 14. Please note, this date and time are not cast in stone and may or may not change.”

Haynes said there were no Com­mon­wealth or CARI­COM elec­tion ob­servers here al­though the UNC had called for this in the months pre­ced­ing the elec­tions.

Fraught with ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in many con­stituen­cies, Haynes said this was why the UNC had called for a re­count in five con­stituen­cies —San Fer­nan­do West, St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, To­co-San­gre Grande and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro.

She said the dis­par­i­ty in the fig­ures was cause for con­cern, not­ing that the par­ty was shocked when Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced vic­to­ry at the polls al­though the bal­lots were still be­ing count­ed.

“Our le­gal teams are com­pil­ing da­ta. We are not go­ing to go about this in a piece­meal fash­ion, where you get one thing to­day and an­oth­er to­mor­row. You will get the to­tal list of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties when we have it,” Haynes said.

“They will be backed up by in­for­ma­tion com­ing from our polling sta­tions, our sta­tion’s di­aries and our le­gal teams. We are go­ing about this in a de­lib­er­ate man­ner be­cause we un­der­stood that we had to be very care­ful and very de­lib­er­ate be­cause we had no elec­tion ob­servers in the 2020 elec­tion.”

She not­ed that the UNC had tak­en note of a video show­ing the PNM can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West Faris Al-Rawi walk­ing in­to the EBC’s re­turn­ing of­fice at 6 pm with doc­u­ments and pa­pers.

“We have tak­en note and we in­tend to raise this is­sue with the EBC,” she de­clared.

Haynes al­so said the UNC was not pleased with com­ments made by Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope, who de­nied re­ports that peo­ple had wait­ed four hours in line at the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day in­ter­viewed sev­er­al res­i­dents who said they were forced to wait for up to four hours to cast their bal­lots. It was al­leged that a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer who was re­lat­ed to the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer from a polling sta­tion was de­lib­er­ate­ly hold­ing back the flow of vot­ers but Nar­cis-Scope said COVID-19 pro­to­cols had cre­at­ed some de­lays.

“This idea of peo­ple see­ing things hap­pened and be­ing told it did not hap­pen, we have seen across the board. Every­one who was in a polling sta­tion knows what was hap­pen­ing. We are not sat­is­fied with the an­swer by Nar­cis-Scope be­cause we know it to be in­ac­cu­rate,” Haynes said.

Asked to com­ment on how close the vot­ing fig­ures were in the mar­gin­als un­der re­count, Haynes said, “In San Fer­nan­do West, the fig­ures were about 1,500, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro were about 400-500.”

She added, “Polling Di­vi­sions were still com­ing in when vic­to­ry was an­nounced. Some num­bers are still not in.”

Haynes ex­plained that the re­counts will take place be­tween yes­ter­day and to­day and then the UNC will deal with the al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties. She said they had no in­for­ma­tion yet on vot­er turnout.

“Once we get the da­ta we will pro­vide analy­sis. We saw for our­selves peo­ple lined up and wait­ing. We have seen ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and we will be keep­ing the pub­lic abreast of the sit­u­a­tion,” Haynes said.

On Mon­day night, Nar­cis-Scope said the EBC did its best to clear up lines at Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre af­ter elec­tors com­plained they wait­ed for four hours to vote. Nar­cis-Scope said she was aware of the is­sue with one polling di­vi­sion but said the de­lays were caused by a high vot­er turnout and COVID-19 pro­to­cols.

She ex­plained that the EBC had warned that there would be de­lays be­cause of so­cial dis­tanc­ing but de­nied peo­ple wait­ed for four hours to vote.

As the polls closed off at 6 pm on Mon­day, more than 40 peo­ple from the Gulf View and Bel Air area were turned away from vot­ing. On­ly those who were near the polling di­vi­sion were al­lowed to vote.

At­tor­ney Jayan­ti Lutch­miedi­al and sub-agent for UNC can­di­date Sean Sobers said they were dis­ap­point­ed that the EBC did noth­ing to speed up the vot­ing process­es at the polling di­vi­sion, which housed three polling sta­tions.