Richard Lord

Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har scored a land­slide vic­to­ry in yes­ter­day's COP elec­tions for po­lit­i­cal leader. Re­sults an­nounced at the par­ty's head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day showed Ra­mad­har scor­ing a re­sound­ing vic­to­ry over the three oth­er con­tenders with 3,385 votes. Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts was a dis­tant sec­ond with 1,026 votes. At­tor­ney Ver­non De­Li­ma got 725 votes and an­i­mal rights ac­tivist Nali­ni Di­al got 45 votes.

Chair­man of the COP's elec­tion com­mis­sion Val­lence Ramb­harat said the polls went smooth­ly with a steady turn out of vot­ers. He said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6,000 peo­ple cast their bal­lots. How­ev­er, 76 peo­ple were un­able to vote be­cause of prob­lems with their vot­er reg­is­tra­tion, and sev­er­al vot­ers in Di­a­mond Vale and Mar­aval had prob­lems vot­ing be­cause traf­fic grid­lock caused by the Red Bull Flug­tag event in Ch­aguara­mas.

Ramb­harat said a re­quest to ex­tend the vot­ing hours at those polling sta­tions was turned down be­cause as at 4 pm, the traf­fic had not eased. Ra­mad­har, an at­tor­ney, now takes over the helm of the COP from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an, founder of the par­ty, who did not con­test the polls