RALPH BAN­WARIE

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

It was a smooth process yes­ter­day for can­di­dates fil­ing their gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tion pa­pers for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la and To­co/San­gre Grande yes­ter­day as they all re­port­ed no is­sues on the day.

Wayne Sturge of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and his op­po­nent in To­co/San­gre Grande, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date Roger Munroe, who filed at the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s of­fice at of­fices on Brier­ley Street, San­gre Grande, told Guardian Me­dia all went well. They said they were greet­ed with cour­tesy, and the pa­per­work was done ef­fi­cient­ly with­out any hic­cups.

First-time can­di­dates, the UNC’s Shiv­ana Sam and the PNM’s San­jiv Bood­hu, who both filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at Ram­dass Street, re­port­ed hav­ing no prob­lem. They said the re­turn­ing of­fi­cers were very help­ful and en­sured that all in­for­ma­tion was cor­rect.

All four can­di­dates said they were con­fi­dent that they would win their re­spec­tive seats.

Sam and Sturge ar­rived with throngs of sup­port­ers armed with sup­port­ers wav­ing flags and ac­com­pa­nied by DJs on trucks pro­vid­ing mu­sic as they made their way to their re­spec­tive EBC of­fices to sub­mit their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

The PNM can­di­dates al­so ar­rived sim­i­lar­ly, both pro­ces­sions on oc­ca­sion bring­ing traf­fic flow to a snail’s pace.

The at­mos­phere was cor­dial as can­di­dates and sup­port­ers shook hands and greet­ed each oth­er.

At the end of the nom­i­na­tion process, sup­port­ers were treat­ed to dou­bles and corn soup by can­di­dates of both the UNC and PNM.

Po­lice of­fi­cers who were over­see­ing the day’s pro­ceed­ings had lit­tle or no work to do, as the at­mos­phere was calm and can­di­dates and sup­port­ers all abid­ed by the laws.

The can­di­dates com­mend­ed their sup­port­ers and en­cour­aged them to main­tain good be­hav­iour through­out the cam­paign.