Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has voiced con­cerns over po­ten­tial dis­crep­an­cies in the vot­ing process­es at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion and the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, sug­gest­ing that these could sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect elec­tion re­sults.

While cast­ing her vote at the Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian School at Dum­fries Road, San Fer­nan­do, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again high­light­ed the lack of in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­servers from the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at and the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion.

Delv­ing deep­er in­to the mat­ter, she stat­ed, "We have an is­sue at Gulf View com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in terms of the lay­out. I al­so com­plained to the EBC about bal­lot box­es and en­velopes that ap­peared to have been tam­pered with as it re­lates to the spe­cial vot­ers. The EBC has ad­mit­ted there is a de­viance from the stan­dard pro­ce­dure."

Di­rect­ly ad­dress­ing the bal­lots from San­gre Grande and San Fer­nan­do, she ques­tioned: "Why is it that the bal­lots re­lat­ing to these ar­eas ap­pear to be tam­pered with? As we all know these are the two bat­tle­ground Cor­po­ra­tions. I re­main very con­cerned about that process."

Asked to com­ment on vot­ing in oth­er ar­eas, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "From my re­ports through­out the day, vot­er turnout in some ar­eas has been very low in the north and in the west. In oth­er ar­eas, there has been a steady flow and no ma­jor in­ci­dents but I re­main con­cerned about the in­tegri­ty of the bal­lots and we will see more about that as they come in and the count be­gins this evening."

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so said they will con­test any dis­crep­an­cy.

"We will do what­ev­er it takes to get democ­ra­cy and trans­paren­cy in this elec­toral process. That's why we re­quest­ed elec­tion ob­servers re­peat­ed­ly," she added.

She al­so cri­tiqued the ap­par­ent re­luc­tance for trans­paren­cy say­ing: "It's a hot­ly con­test­ed elec­tion, and we re­peat­ed­ly called for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers but the Prime Min­is­ter has a dif­fer­ent view. If you have noth­ing to hide, why don't you want them to come?"

High­light­ing the in­con­gruity of the sit­u­a­tion, she point­ed out the con­trast in gov­ern­ment spend­ing, "The Prime Min­is­ter host­ed the Cari­com meet­ing for mil­lions, and host­ed for­eign dig­ni­taries for mil­lions of dol­lars. Yet, when you have some­thing so fun­da­men­tal as a democ­ra­cy, which is fair­ness and in­tegri­ty in an elec­tion process, you don't want to spend that mon­ey."

Al­though the agen­cies cov­er ob­serv­er ex­pens­es, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the gov­ern­ment is re­spon­si­ble for their ac­com­mo­da­tion and trans­porta­tion.

She al­so said she will con­tin­ue to main­tain close scruti­ny adding: "I plan to con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the polling sta­tion and cer­tain­ly we will take le­gal ac­tion if need­ed."