Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC, is main­tain­ing that the Prime Min­is­ter is mis­lead­ing the coun­try, where elec­tion ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth are con­cerned.

The UNC Leader is ac­cus­ing PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley of stalling the process, so that ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth would not be able to get to T&T in time for the manda­to­ry 14-day quar­an­tine pe­ri­od, be­fore the poll on Mon­day 10th Au­gust 2020.

She re­states the claim in a news re­lease is­sued to­day by the par­ty’s sec­re­tari­at.

Fol­low­ing is the full text of that state­ment…

KAM­LA: KEI­TH ROW­LEY TRY­ING TO MIS­LEAD THE POP­U­LA­TION ON ELEC­TION OB­SERVERS

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, SC is ac­cus­ing the Prime Min­is­ter of try­ing to mis­lead the pub­lic on the abil­i­ty of Com­mon­wealth Ob­servers to ar­rive in Trinidad and To­ba­go to mon­i­tor the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

On Ju­ly 8th, 2020 the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced via his Face­book page that he wrote to Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ir­win La Rocque and Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Pa­tri­cia Scot­land, QC, for­mal­ly invit­ing them to send elec­tion ob­servers to T&T.

On Fri­day 24th Ju­ly, af­ter Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned the sta­tus of in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­servers, and dur­ing a vir­tu­al “lime” the Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that the Com­mon­wealth had replied say­ing “they didn’t think they would be able to come be­cause of the cost”.

Dr Row­ley is once again try­ing to mis­lead the pop­u­la­tion. The Prime Min­is­ter is well aware that re­vised guide­lines for Com­mon­wealth elec­tion ob­ser­va­tion were agreed to and re­leased at the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in 2018, which he at­tend­ed.

Dur­ing that meet­ing of CHOGM, it was stat­ed that the new guide­lines “adopt best prac­tice, as al­so re­flect­ed in the De­c­la­ra­tion of Prin­ci­ples on In­ter­na­tion­al Elec­tion Ob­ser­va­tion, and will en­sure the on-go­ing in­tegri­ty, val­ue and im­pact of Com­mon­wealth ob­serv­er mis­sions as they con­tin­ue to sup­port the strength­en­ing of elec­toral democ­ra­cy and the po­lit­i­cal rights of Com­mon­wealth cit­i­zens.”

Sec­tion 8.2 of these guide­lines states:

“The costs of each ob­serv­er mis­sion are cov­ered by the Sec­re­tari­at. No funds are sought from the host mem­ber coun­try be­ing ob­served…”

Row­ley’s ac­tions can now be viewed as an at­tempt to not on­ly stall the process so that Ob­serv­er teams would not have enough time to en­ter the coun­try and un­der­go the manda­to­ry 14-day quar­an­tine, but a de­lib­er­ate at­tempt to hood­wink the pop­u­la­tion mere days be­fore the elec­tion, and avoid scruti­ny.

As said pre­vi­ous­ly, In­ter­na­tion­al Ob­servers have in the past, played an im­por­tant role in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s elec­tions. In the 2007 and 2010 elec­tions, we re­ceived ob­servers from the Com­mon­wealth and Cari­com, while the 2015 elec­tion was ob­served by the Com­mon­wealth at my re­quest.

We have seen the piv­otal role In­ter­na­tion­al Ob­servers played in the re­cent elec­tions in Guyana and we can agree that with­out them, their elec­tions would have not re­flect­ed the true will of the peo­ple.

Like­wise, we have al­ways had a long tra­di­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Elec­tions Ob­servers present in Trinidad and To­ba­go and as such they must be present.

Kei­th Row­ley must take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if In­ter­na­tion­al Ob­servers are un­able to ar­rive here in time to en­sure prop­er scruti­ny of the elec­tion process.

I am call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to act im­me­di­ate­ly to put the nec­es­sary arrange­ments in place so we will not be left with­out Ob­serv­er teams for the first time in our re­cent elec­toral his­to­ry.

Let us con­tin­ue to do all we can to en­sure our tra­di­tion of free and fair elec­tions in Trinidad and To­ba­go is up­held while pro­tect­ing the health and well­be­ing of our na­tion.