KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts Ran­dall Mitchell says the thor­ough re­counts in sev­er­al elec­toral dis­tricts fol­low­ing Mon­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions (LGE) make a mock­ery of Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­peat­ed den­i­gra­tion of the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a re­count of bal­lots and polling cards in the Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la elec­toral dis­trict at the Mara­bel­la South Sec­ondary School on Tues­day night, Mitchell said the fact that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress re­quest­ed 12 of the 14 re­counts showed it had faith in the in­sti­tu­tion. The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment asked for two re­counts.

Mitchell said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had per­pe­trat­ed in­jus­tices against a state en­ti­ty by try­ing to crit­i­cise the EBC as though it was par­ti­san or cor­rupt.

“The fact they are ask­ing for many re­counts, they know that the EBC is thor­ough. They knew the re­sults would not change, but she was there ask­ing for re­counts, and she was there threat­en­ing to sue about all these ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties when there re­al­ly were none,” Mitchell said.

He said the re­count saw min­i­mal mis­takes and er­rors, re­sult­ing in one bal­lot less for UNC coun­cil­lor-elect Sasha Ali.

The re­count showed Ali amassed 884 votes, while the PNM’s Mar­cus Gird­harie got 873.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly ques­tioned whether two EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers for mar­gin­al seats in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion were reg­is­tered PNM mem­bers. The UNC al­so ac­cused the EBC of show­ing po­lit­i­cal bias fol­low­ing an “in­ap­pro­pri­ate and cu­ri­ous state­ment” from the body in June af­ter the UNC called for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers at the polls.

Gird­harie, who rep­re­sent­ed the elec­toral dis­trict as a UNC coun­cil­lor be­tween 2019 and 2023 un­til he switched al­le­giances, ac­cept­ed the re­sults. He ad­vised Ali that a coun­cil­lor’s job is a part-time po­si­tion with a full-time com­mit­ment.

“I ac­cept the fact that we have lost by 11 votes. I ex­tend con­grat­u­la­tions to Ms Ali and wish her all the best. The re­sults would have been sta­tis­tics. As Faris Al-Rawi would have in­di­cat­ed, it is some­thing that does not lie,” Gird­harie said.

“We have in­creased the PNM votes from the last elec­tion by 96 votes, and the UNC would have lost some of their votes, I think, by 22. Those are things to note, but at the same time, I have a lot more work to do.”

De­spite los­ing, he said he looks for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to serve res­i­dents and the San Fer­nan­do West Con­stituen­cy as an ac­tive PNM mem­ber.

As for Ali, she is ex­cit­ed to take on the new role.

“From the get-go, I in­di­cat­ed I was in it to win it. I am here. I be­lieve in align­ment. I have al­ways said that I felt the need to do more and serve the peo­ple, and I have that op­por­tu­ni­ty to­day. I won by 12, but one got re­ject­ed be­cause of some pen marks, but I am here and 11 votes hap­pi­er to place me on the coun­cil,” Ali said.

Her rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, ex­plained that one bal­lot in favour of Ali had un­usu­al pen mark­ings, and the EBC re­ject­ed it dur­ing the re­count. How­ev­er, it did not change the out­come.

Re­gard­ing the en­tire LGE, Lutch­me­di­al said the UNC won the pop­u­lar vote con­vinc­ing­ly, which the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance bol­stered with 15,000-plus votes. She said there was an over­whelm­ing re­sponse from the pop­u­la­tion and a re­jec­tion of the PNM.

De­spite 760,635 elec­tors ab­stain­ing from vot­ing, Lutch­me­di­al said the ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple in the coun­try vot­ed against the PNM, send­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mes­sage. She said the 2023 LGE dif­fered from oth­ers, as the UNC fought Gov­ern­ment to get it. She said the UNC cam­paigned on poli­cies which a large por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion wel­comed.