Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) na­tion­al elec­tions yes­ter­day saw the two op­pos­ing slates ac­cuse each oth­er of us­ing un­of­fi­cial lists and turn­ing away vot­ers.

Ten­sions flared at one par­tic­u­lar polling venue at the Debe Sec­ondary when sup­port­ers of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Star Team and Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) en­gaged in a heat­ed ex­change of words. Speak­ing on this mat­ter at Na­pari­ma Col­lege in San Fer­nan­do af­ter he vot­ed, Oropouche East MP and Star Team deputy po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, said he was dis­ap­point­ed by the be­hav­iour of the op­pos­ing slate.

He ac­cused the UL team of us­ing a dif­fer­ent list and turn­ing away sup­port­ers of the Star Team.

“I won’t say it is a fake list, but they were telling peo­ple their names were not on the list. It was an act of de­cep­tion. I was very dis­ap­point­ed in that this morn­ing.” On the is­sue of a mock sta­tion be­ing set up too close to the polling sta­tion, Mooni­lal said, “We brought it to the at­ten­tion of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, they in­struct­ed them to move, but they still did not move. That led to heat­ed and an­tag­o­nis­tic re­spons­es. I be­lieve the po­lice were called in a few min­utes ago. It is un­for­tu­nate, but the rules can­not be for on­ly one side, but for all.”

Mean­while, UP’s co­or­di­na­tor at Debe Sec­ondary, Mil­ton Mathu­ra, said they were not telling any­one who to vote for but “to let their con­science be their guide.”

He claimed the Star Team’s slate was in­tim­i­dat­ing and co­erc­ing peo­ple to vote for their can­di­dates. Mathu­ra, who is al­so on the Oropouche East ex­ec­u­tive list, al­so claimed he was la­belled a trai­tor and threat­ened. “At the end of the day, there is one UNC par­ty. I did not quar­rel or say any­thing, and they get on in a very un­re­spectable way.”

UP’s deputy po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date and Tabaquite MP, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia af­ter cast­ing her vote at the St Julien Pres­by­ter­ian School in Princes Town, called on the op­pos­ing slate to bring ev­i­dence to sup­port their claims.

She in­sist­ed that the reg­is­tered vot­ers’ lists they used were the of­fi­cial lists from the UNC head­quar­ters, in keep­ing with the Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee rules.

She said, “We have been in touch with all the co­or­di­na­tors coun­try­wide, and what we found is that the on­ly per­sons in pos­ses­sion of a cer­ti­fied list are the per­sons on our slate.”

Haynes-Al­leyne said their lawyers had con­tact­ed the Elec­tion Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, in­di­cat­ing that on­ly their lists should be recog­nised as they bear the re­quired cer­ti­fi­ca­tions.

“We are ask­ing that on­ly the list that has been cer­ti­fied from the par­ty head­quar­ters be used at this time.

On the is­sue of UP’s mock sta­tion be­ing too close to the polling sta­tion, she said, “There was no is­sue of po­si­tion­ing the mock sta­tion.”

She said her team was be­ing metic­u­lous and vig­i­lant through­out the day and record­ing any dis­crep­an­cies.