Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

Joshua.se­mu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors Wade Mark, Dami­an Ly­der, and Jear­lean John, all sup­port­ers of the Star Slate in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ in­ter­nal elec­tions, ex­pressed con­fi­dence that re­gard­less of the elec­tion’s re­sults, the par­ty will be unit­ed head­ing in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tions.

The trio spoke at the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union Hall, Wrighton Road polling sta­tion, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

UNC’s Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader John said Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will find a way to unite the par­ty de­spite con­cerns raised by mem­bers of the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate about her lead­er­ship.

“The leader of the Op­po­si­tion, as she is now for a brief mo­ment, I’m sure will lead the UNC as a uni­fied par­ty go­ing in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion. I have no doubt about that. It is her tem­pera­ment. She’s a uni­fi­er, not a di­vider. She brings peo­ple to­geth­er. That is what she is called to do. That is her at­ti­tude with every­thing that she does,” John said.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Mark, who vot­ed in St Joseph, de­scribed the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions as a launch­pad to re­move the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment from of­fice.

He said that re­gard­less of what has been said by mem­bers lead­ing up to the in­ter­nal elec­tions, the par­ty will be ready and unit­ed.

“We al­ways have to bear in mind that it is one fam­i­ly. It’s the UNC fam­i­ly. Yes, we have con­tests. Yes, we have com­pe­ti­tion. That is part of the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic spir­it, and we wel­come that. We feel that at the end of that process, we re­al­ly have to bring all our col­leagues to­geth­er to work to­wards the com­mon ob­jec­tive.

“This hur­dle we are go­ing to over­come some­time this evening in­to to­mor­row when the re­sults are fi­nal­ly an­nounced. We have the task of re­al­ly pulling the par­ty to­geth­er and work­ing to­wards heal­ing, and not on­ly heal­ing but work­ing to bring all forces in our coun­try that are di­a­met­ri­cal­ly op­posed to the crim­i­nal con­duct and gang­ster-type be­hav­iour and the an­ti-peo­ple, an­ti-work­ing class, and an­ti-labour poli­cies prac­ticed and com­mit­ted by this gov­ern­ment,” Mark said.

Sen­a­tors Mark and Dami­an Ly­der re­port­ed that while things start­ed off slow­ly in the Diego Mar­tin and Port-of-Spain con­stituen­cies, they picked up rel­a­tive­ly well. How­ev­er, they ad­mit­ted that the ar­eas were not tra­di­tion­al par­ty strong­holds.

Guardian Me­dia ob­served a rel­a­tive­ly low turnout of vot­ers up un­til mid-af­ter­noon at SWW­TU Hall. Up un­til 1 pm, the con­stituen­cies of Port-of-Spain North and South had a turnout of 47 vot­ers.

For­mer ra­dio talk show host Garth Christo­pher was one of the vot­ers in Port-of-Spain. Un­like the three sen­a­tors, he vot­ed for the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots.

He said a vote for the Star slate was a vote for the PNM. “At the end of the day, it is time for change. There was a time for change for Mr Pan­day, and Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar led that change, and it is time for a change for Kam­la, and Rush­ton Paray, Ani­ta Haynes, and Kyle Tak­lals­ingh are lead­ing that change. That change is nec­es­sary, es­pe­cial­ly if we want to get in­to pow­er,” he said.

Sen­a­tor Ly­der, who vot­ed for Diego Mar­tin, said the vot­ing num­bers in Diego Mar­tin North East and West were im­pres­sive in com­par­i­son to the last in­ter­nal elec­tion.

“From my time spent in Diego Mar­tin this morn­ing, it was a smooth process. There were no hic­cups. We didn’t see any sort of prob­lems with­in the sys­tem, so no com­plaints from ei­ther side.

“There was a good turnout, so that’s a good sign for the par­ty. It’s a good sign for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress go­ing in­to next year’s gen­er­al elec­tion, un­less it comes soon­er … The UNC is alive and kick­ing. The UNC is the strongest par­ty in this coun­try to­day, and we are ready for the PNM,” Ly­der said.

Around 1 pm in Diego Mar­tin, Diego Mar­tin West had 65 vot­ers, Diego Mar­tin North East 58, and Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral 16 vot­ers.