Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

When all the votes were count­ed af­ter the sit­ting of the Elec­toral Col­lege to elect a Pres­i­dent yes­ter­day, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) can­di­date, Is­rael Khan, SC, on­ly gar­nered 22 votes.

With the UNC hold­ing 25 mem­bers in the Elec­toral Col­lege, this ef­fec­tive­ly meant three mem­bers from with­in its ranks did not sup­port the par­ty’s choice.

There were three bal­lots that were spoiled/re­ject­ed in the elec­tion, but be­ing a se­cret bal­lot, there was no way to know if these were the miss­ing UNC votes.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the sit­ting end­ed, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not sur­prised by the re­sults of the elec­tion giv­en the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) ma­jor­i­ty in the Elec­toral Col­lege.

Ques­tioned by Guardian Me­dia about the three miss­ing votes for their can­di­date, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this al­so did not sur­prise her, as it was sim­ply an ex­er­cise of democ­ra­cy.

“I am not sur­prised. In pol­i­tics, every day is a new day. I am not sur­prised. On our side, we op­er­ate as a democ­ra­cy. Even Row­ley him­self made the con­fes­sion that he had bro­ken his par­ty rule when he vot­ed for...Mr (ANR) Robin­son many moons ago. So, I am not sur­prised,” she said.

“This par­ty, we op­er­ate as a democ­ra­cy and in in­ter­est of that democ­ra­cy, we don’t whip the whip when peo­ple ex­er­cise their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right and I see it as an ex­er­cise in democ­ra­cy.”

Pressed fur­ther on the ap­par­ent dis­si­dents, she said, “I am not af­front­ed. How­ev­er, the mem­bers who did so will have their own con­scious­ness to take care of and make peace with their God. As I say, it’s a democ­ra­cy.”

At the press con­fer­ence, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­it­er­at­ed the par­ty’s dis­trust in the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led Gov­ern­ment and con­cern over Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s as­cen­sion to the pres­i­den­cy.

“Gov­ern­ment ig­nored calls and have now put in place a bla­tant, po­lit­i­cal­ly par­ti­san per­son who has been vo­cal about spread­ing the gospel of the PNM. We are deeply con­cerned, as should all right-think­ing cit­i­zens be con­cerned, about the detri­men­tal ef­fect this will have on our democ­ra­cy,” she said.

She said they are con­cerned the Gov­ern­ment will use Kan­ga­loo’s pres­i­den­cy as a “rub­ber stamp in their con­tin­ued as­sault on our Con­sti­tu­tion.”

With this in mind, the Op­po­si­tion Leader pledged that her par­ty will stand as a watch­dog over Kan­ga­loo’s ac­tions when she takes up of­fice.

“The Op­po­si­tion will be keep­ing a close eye on the of­fice hold­er and her per­for­mance in that of­fice. We will metic­u­lous­ly scru­ti­nise every of­fi­cial func­tion that that Pres­i­dent will per­form on be­half of the peo­ple of our coun­try,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there was need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and to tai­lor the role of the Pres­i­dent in the coun­try. Pre-emp­tive­ly re­spond­ing to ques­tions about why she didn’t do that when she held the ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment be­tween 2010 and 2015, she said she be­gan the process but there was not enough time in their tenure to com­plete it.