Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The slow pace of vot­ing in hot­ly con­test­ed mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies in Trinidad ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing drew the ire of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

Al­most every UNC can­di­date and of­fi­cial in­ter­viewed by Guardian Me­dia af­ter the start of vot­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing took is­sue with the de­lays, with some at­tribut­ing them to of­fi­cials of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

Their com­plaints were fur­ther rep­re­sent­ed in dozens of le­gal let­ters sent by lawyers for var­i­ous can­di­dates to the EBC’s Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis and var­i­ous re­turn­ing of­fi­cers.

Speak­ing to me­dia per­son­nel af­ter cast­ing her bal­lot at the Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian School in La Ro­main yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, UNC leader and can­di­date for Siparia Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firmed the re­ports of de­lays.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The process is very lengthy. I don’t know if it is a de­lib­er­ate strat­e­gy to frus­trate peo­ple or just in­com­pe­tence on the part of some.”

“We will have a dossier of let­ters by the end of the day, but I pray that good sense pre­vails and there are no re­al re­stric­tions and block­ages of peo­ple cast­ing their votes,” she added.

UNC can­di­date for Cou­va South Bar­ry Padarath sug­gest­ed that de­lays were caused by the EBC hir­ing in­ex­pe­ri­enced staff for the elec­tion.

“The EBC has hired sev­er­al new per­sons com­ing in with­out prop­er­ly train­ing them. You are see­ing the chal­lenges of in­ex­pe­ri­enced staff not know­ing how to in­ter­pret the elec­tion rules across the length and breadth of the coun­try,” he said.

Padarath went as far as to sug­gest a more ne­far­i­ous rea­son for the de­lays.

“It ap­pears to us to be an at­tempt to frus­trate the process,” he said.

UNC can­di­date for Barataria/San Juan Sad­dam Ho­sein said the par­ty planned to re­port the is­sues to the Cari­com and Com­mon­wealth elec­tion ob­servers in­vit­ed for the elec­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young af­ter re­peat­ed calls from the UNC.

“I don’t want to ac­cuse any­one of be­ing de­lib­er­ate but it seems that this is on­ly tak­ing place in sev­er­al of the polling di­vi­sions that are tra­di­tion­al­ly very strong UNC-based,” Ho­sein said.

“I think it is pru­dent to let the ob­servers know what is hap­pen­ing be­cause it is vot­er frus­tra­tion that is tak­ing place and vot­er sup­pres­sion,” he added.

In cor­re­spon­dence sent by at­tor­neys Bri­an Baig and Richard Jag­gas­sar, who served as elec­tion agents for the UNC Aranguez/St Joseph can­di­date, the par­ty sought to of­fi­cial­ly high­light the de­lays at polling sta­tions in that con­stituen­cy.

“The vot­ers re­port the ex­pe­ri­ence to be “painful­ly slow” even though there is no line,” they said.

They al­so claimed poll clerks were not call­ing out the names of vot­ers and their con­sec­u­tive num­bers.

“This will hin­der our abil­i­ty to track the vot­er pro­gres­sions through­out the day and is a breach of the elec­tion day rules and guide­lines,” they said.

The de­lays not­ed by the UNC did not ap­pear to be iso­lat­ed, as there were sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences for vot­ers across the coun­try, with a sus­pect­ed high­er-than-usu­al vot­er turnout.

PM Young had to wait more than half an hour at the In­ter­na­tion­al School of Port-of-Spain in West­moor­ings.

“It is cer­tain­ly the longest line I have been in since vot­ing in T&T,” Young said.

How­ev­er, he said the de­lays were not a con­spir­a­cy as sug­gest­ed and might have been due to many cit­i­zens show­ing an in­ter­est in the elec­tion.

“There is a lot of in­ter­est in this year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion and I read that as a very good sign. It in­di­cat­ed to me that democ­ra­cy is alive and well and that peo­ple are tak­ing their civic du­ty quite se­ri­ous­ly,” Young said.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for Diego Mar­tin North/East Colm Im­bert said he was pleased with the vot­ing process at his polling sta­tion, which took three min­utes to com­plete.

“It was one of the smoothest vot­ing process­es I have ever been in­volved in, maybe, be­cause there were not many peo­ple there, who knows,” he said.

PNM na­tion­al cam­paign man­ag­er Ro­han Sinanan said his par­ty did not re­ceive re­ports of the ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties claimed by the UNC.

“Every­thing went smooth­ly. I have al­ways ex­pressed con­fi­dence in the sys­tem of vot­ing in T&T and the EBC,” he said.

“I want to con­grat­u­late all the cit­i­zens of T&T. So far, we are hav­ing an elec­tion that is free and fair or with­out any in­tim­i­da­tion at this point in time and we re­al­ly hope that con­tin­ues.”

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day said her par­ty, which field­ed 37 can­di­dates for the elec­tion, did not have an is­sue with the de­lays.

How­ev­er, Pan­day, who con­test­ed the Cou­va North con­stituen­cy pre­vi­ous­ly held by her de­ceased fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, said the is­sue high­light­ed the need for vot­ing re­form.

“I main­tain the fact that the process is very ar­cha­ic. It needs to mod­ernise. When you have an out­dat­ed sys­tem or process room is left for things to hap­pen,” she said.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith did not raise is­sues with the de­lays, which af­fect­ed him, his wife and son, who vot­ed in his first elec­tion.

Grif­fith said he was pleased with the pres­ence of for­eign elec­tion ob­servers.

“Any time you have con­cerns it can cause in­sta­bil­i­ty, it can af­fect the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of the coun­try.

“All I am ask­ing the coun­try is come to­mor­row, we are all cit­i­zens of the same coun­try. Let us ap­pre­ci­ate and ac­cept the de­ci­sion made by the pub­lic,” he said.

There were al­so al­le­ga­tions from the UNC and the PNM of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty such as vot­er in­tim­i­da­tion, bribery and elec­tion-day can­vass­ing.

Im­bert high­light­ed the al­le­ga­tions in a post on his ac­count on X (for­mer Twit­ter).

“I am re­ceiv­ing sev­er­al re­ports of UNC ac­tivists in mar­gin­al seats, such as To­co/San­gre Grande and St Joseph (Mt D’Or) at­tempt­ing to in­duce vot­ers to ei­ther stay home or vote UNC, of­fer­ing $1,000 in cash,” he said.

“They could try all the dirty tricks they want. They will get the same licks.”

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter vot­ing, PNM can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West Faris Al-Rawi made sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tions of il­le­gal con­duct in the seat he con­test­ed.

Guardian Me­dia could not con­firm any of the al­le­ga­tions made, as no ev­i­dence was pro­vid­ed by ei­ther of the par­ties.

How­ev­er, a man was ar­rest­ed by po­lice in St Joseph on sus­pi­cion of vot­er bribery, af­ter he was held with $30,000 in cash and could not ac­count for the source of the funds. He re­mained de­tained up to late yes­ter­day.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar, who was in­ter­viewed in San Fer­nan­do, said he had not re­ceived any re­ports of elec­tion of­fences.

“Usu­al­ly, when I vis­it I would ask the of­fi­cers if there is any­thing un­to­ward and the of­fi­cers in­di­cat­ed that every­thing was qui­et and reg­u­lar,” Mys­tar said.

A news team in Gulf View, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day morn­ing, wit­nessed a po­lice of­fi­cer speak­ing to a res­i­dent who was ac­cused of op­er­at­ing a mock polling sta­tion op­po­site a le­git­i­mate one.

The of­fi­cer’s in­ter­ven­tion was based on a com­plaint by UNC San Fer­nan­do West cam­paign man­ag­er Vil­lian­na Ra­moutars­ingh.