Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Chief Cari­com ob­serv­er, Hugh Chol­monde­ley, said he had not re­ceived any un­to­ward re­ports of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the elec­tion process up to mid­day yes­ter­day.Chol­monde­ley was speak­ing to re­porters yes­ter­day at San Fran­cique Hin­du School, short­ly be­fore po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, cast her vote around mid­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at the polling booth, ac­com­pa­nied by a heavy con­tin­gent of se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers.

For the first time in months, Per­sad-Bisses­sar took off her trade mark yel­low and donned a black and white suit. She told re­porters she had cast her vote for Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, the youngest can­di­date con­test­ing any seat in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. With her hus­band Dr Gre­go­ry Bisses­sar at her side, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said if the bal­lots were not ini­tialled, then they would be con­sid­ered null and void.

She said she had re­port­ed the mat­ter to Chol­monde­ley, who in­di­cat­ed that he would speak to his team. "We have our lawyers on the street and they will be re­port­ing on any un­to­ward in­ci­dents. "This is a tragedy for those peo­ple who made an ef­fort to cast their votes on­ly to have their vote null, be­cause of the lack of an ini­tial," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She al­so com­plained that in one polling sta­tion, there were 700-plus peo­ple wait­ing to vote and there was on­ly one booth.

She ex­pressed con­cern with the long lines, say­ing that the process was too de­layed. She al­so said she had re­ceived no re­ports of vi­o­lence or thug­gery, adding that vot­ing was pro­ceed­ing smooth­ly. Mean­while, at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la said ac­cord­ing to Rule 97-4, the bal­lot which does not bear the ini­tials of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer did not nec­es­sar­i­ly have to be void. He said when count­ing the bal­lots, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer could ex­er­cise dis­cre­tion in de­ter­min­ing whether the bal­lots were void.