The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is in­ten­si­fy­ing its call for the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to be un­der clos­er scruti­ny, as it says there is a need for a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the agency’s op­er­a­tions.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the UNC’s of­fice along Charles Street, Port-of-Spain on Thurs­day, at­tor­ney Dar­rell Al­la­har com­plained of con­tin­ued al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the process lead­ing up to this year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion and a need to re­form the elec­toral sys­tem. 

“We have just told the Com­mon­wealth Ob­serv­er team that in light of all that has tran­spired so far, the UNC is of the very strong view that im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the Gen­er­al Elec­tion there ought to be es­tab­lished a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the EBC.”

Al­la­har said a UNC team had pre­sent­ed a dossier con­tain­ing its con­cerns about the EBC to the Com­mon­wealth ob­serv­er group ear­li­er in the day and that the Com­mis­sion on En­quiry was nec­es­sary to en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the coun­try’s democ­ra­cy.

“Al­so the con­duct of all the elec­tion of­fi­cials in re­spect to the man­age­ment and con­duct of all the elec­tions with a view to de­ter­min­ing if per­sons should be pros­e­cut­ed for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.”

In 2002 a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion was es­tab­lished to in­ves­ti­gate con­cerns re­gard­ing the ac­cu­ra­cy and re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the Vot­ers List used in the De­cem­ber 11, 2000 Gen­er­al Elec­tions.

The en­quiry aimed to ad­dress pub­lic ap­pre­hen­sions about the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process and to en­sure that the EBC’s op­er­a­tions aligned with de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples.

The com­mis­sion’s find­ings high­light­ed sig­nif­i­cant is­sues in the prepa­ra­tion and main­te­nance of the vot­er list.

It iden­ti­fied du­pli­cate reg­is­tra­tions, out­dat­ed in­for­ma­tion, and dis­crep­an­cies be­tween the list and ac­tu­al vot­er turnout. These find­ings raised ques­tions about the EBC’s ca­pac­i­ty to man­age vot­er da­ta ef­fec­tive­ly and to con­duct free and fair elec­tions.

In re­sponse to these find­ings, the com­mis­sion rec­om­mend­ed a com­pre­hen­sive over­haul of the vot­er reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem. Al­la­har said he flagged the au­thor­i­ty’s fail­ure to im­ple­ment the nec­es­sary rec­om­men­da­tions.

“The EBC is not be­yond scruti­ny and those com­mis­sions of en­quires of­ten get to the bot­tom of things. Af­ter elec­tions, peo­ple for­get these things and move on with their lives and it rears its ug­ly head at elec­tions again. We’ve re­mind­ed the ob­serv­er group of rec­om­men­da­tions made in 2015 to im­prove the sys­tem, 10 years now have passed and the EBC has not im­ple­ment­ed those.”

Ear­li­er this week the EBC re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions that it was col­lud­ing with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to rig the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Mean­while, UNC mem­ber Wade Mark al­so ad­vised act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin to not in­ter­fere in the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral sys­tem.

Ear­li­er this week, Ben­jamin stopped short of di­vulging de­tails which he said point­ed to an al­leged plot to dis­rupt the polls. How­ev­er, Mark ques­tioned whether the pro­posed ef­forts to bol­ster safe­ty can de­lib­er­ate­ly dis­rupt the vot­ing process.

“Ju­nior Ben­jamin, you are the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, we hope that what you are do­ing is not de­signed to frus­trate the peo­ple from ex­er­cis­ing their fran­chise. We hope the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er is not in col­lu­sion with the PNM to frus­trate the will of the peo­ple in ex­er­cis­ing their rights.”