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Saturday, May 17, 2025

UNC calls for Commission of Enquiry into EBC

by

Jesse Ramdeo
22 days ago
20250425
Senior UNC member Wade Mark left, holds up poll cards which he claims belonged to dead people during a press conference at the  Office of the Opposition Leader at Charles Street, Port-of-Spain Thursday. At right is attorney David Allahar.

Senior UNC member Wade Mark left, holds up poll cards which he claims belonged to dead people during a press conference at the Office of the Opposition Leader at Charles Street, Port-of-Spain Thursday. At right is attorney David Allahar.

VASHTI SINGH

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.”

2025 General Election


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