DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Vot­ing was most­ly in­ci­dent-free for cit­i­zens who cast their bal­lots in the ten dis­tricts of the Diego Mar­tin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (DM­BC) yes­ter­day.

There were clear skies when polls opened around 6 am but this was in­ter­rupt­ed by scat­tered show­ers around 9.30 am. How­ev­er, the weath­er, did not de­ter de­ter­mined cit­i­zens from vot­ing.

At the Diego Mar­tin Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith vot­ed along­side his wife Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith. They were ac­com­pa­nied by their son, Gary Grif­fith III.

“So, the process was smooth, there have been no con­cerns, no hic­cups. It’s not the first time that I have done it, nei­ther my wife Nicole, wouldn’t be the last hope­ful­ly. This is my son’s first time that he has ac­tu­al­ly vot­ed, and I re­al­ly hope that many oth­er young per­sons would have done the same,” a smil­ing Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith Jr said in the lead up to the elec­tions he urged peo­ple around his age to cast their bal­lot for their can­di­date of choice. He be­lieves this was an op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­di­vid­u­als to air their con­cerns in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic way.

“I al­ways en­cour­aged young per­sons like my­self to come out and vote even if it’s your first time be­cause this is your voice. It all starts with this, it all starts by dip­ping your fin­ger,” he said.

His moth­er was al­so ex­cit­ed about his first-time ex­pe­ri­ence as she not­ed that the NTA at­tempt­ed to ap­peal to young peo­ple on the cam­paign trail.

“It feels al­most like Christ­mas – this be­ing his first vot­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. I re­mem­ber the first time I vot­ed how ex­cit­ed and ner­vous and anx­ious I was,” she said.

Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der said he had no prob­lems vot­ing at the Diego Mar­tin Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School.

Alexan­der, who spoke with re­porters at the PEP’s Park Street and Vic­to­ria Square head of­fice af­ter he ex­er­cised his fran­chise, added: “I have to say that the process was seam­less. The peo­ple in the polling sta­tion knew what they were about. They han­dled the en­tire trans­ac­tion from my en­ter­ing. I have no com­plaints.”

PEP can­di­date for Bel­mont East Fe­li­cia Hold­er said: “The process was pret­ty smooth, very quick, no hic­cups on my end de­spite the bipo­lar weath­er that we’re hav­ing right now.”

Doreen Jack­man, a grand­moth­er, com­plained that she had to deal with too much red tape be­fore she could ac­tu­al­ly cast her vote.

“It was too much cir­cling. So many peo­ple yuh have to go to just be­fore yuh could vote? I thought yuh just go, yuh show them yuh ID,” she said.

An­oth­er vot­er, Bar­ring­ton Thomas, urged peo­ple to con­sid­er the is­sues they are fac­ing and vote for bet­ter rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He said he was tired of bro­ken promis­es.

“I ac­cus­tomed vot­ing, me eh have no prob­lem with vot­ing, but just more peo­ple need to come out and vote be­cause change is im­mi­nent. Change is what we need. Peo­ple does get promised, every­thing is promise, promise, promise. We wah peo­ple who is for the peo­ple of the coun­try, not for your­self,” Thomas said.

Flood­ing was the con­cern raised by one of the vot­ers who turned up at the polling sta­tion at the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral Sec­ondary School. Mer­ri­lyn Squires said she was en­cour­aged to turn up af­ter a can­di­date vis­it­ed her home af­ter hear­ing about her flood­ing woes. The el­der­ly woman, who lives in a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) apart­ment on Char­lotte Street, is hope­ful that her ap­peals did not fall on deaf ears.

“I’ve been go­ing through a re­al stress­ful time, flood and every­thing, bro­ken tiles. But when he walked in on Sat­ur­day morn­ing and he looked around, first time any­body came and see the prob­lem. I wait­ing on a move ten years now be­cause the build­ing flood­ing,” she said.