Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion has record­ed 1,269 new vot­ers in the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy, in the lead-up to the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed by-elec­tion. As reg­is­tra­tion of vot­ers came to an end on Fri­day, more reg­is­tra­tions were still be­ing done.The EBC's act­ing chief elec­tions of­fi­cer Ramesh Nanan said a to­tal of 26,984 peo­ple were reg­is­tered to vote up to May 24, com­pared to 25,715 in May 2010. How­ev­er, he said 20 new trans­ac­tions had tak­en place in the past week.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the EBC's of­fice at Ch­agua­nas on Fri­day, 11 peo­ple were seen do­ing busi­ness. Sev­er­al had come to ver­i­fy whether their names were on the up­dat­ed vot­ers' list. Nanan said his team was work­ing con­stant­ly to up­date the list.He said he had not re­ceived of­fi­cial in­for­ma­tion on the ex­act num­ber of reg­is­tered vot­ers, but did not an­tic­i­pate any great in­crease.Nanan al­so said there were no hic­cups with reg­is­tra­tion.

"Once those seek­ing to be reg­is­tered present the re­quired doc­u­ments, they will be reg­is­tered," he said.He urged cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise their civic du­ty and vote.Asked whether he an­tic­i­pat­ed a high vot­er turnout, Nanan said he did not want to make pre­dic­tions about elec­tions.He said 20,281 peo­ple vot­ed in 2010 in the 30 polling sta­tions.Sev­er­al con­stituents who were in­ter­viewed said they were ea­ger and ex­cit­ed about the elec­tion.

Boysie Ram­sumair, of Alexan­dra Street, Ch­agua­nas, said his en­tire com­mu­ni­ty was vot­ing for for­mer MP Jack Warn­er."For years we suf­fered, but be­cause of Jack, we got good roads and wa­ter," he said."If they nom­i­nate him he will sure­ly win, but if the UNC does not nom­i­nate him, they will not stop him from win­ning."Ram­sumair added that if Warn­er did not con­test the elec­tion, he would have no choice but to vote for the UNC.

An­oth­er con­stituent, Kr­ishendai Ma­hase, said she had al­ready checked her name on the vot­ers' list."My whole fam­i­ly vot­ing for Jack...It does­nt mat­ter what they say about him, he will win and we will vote for him," she said.Her views were echoed by De­von Ma­habir, who said he was ea­ger for the elec­tion and Warn­er was a good per­son who had sup­port from all the par­ty groups in the con­stituen­cy.

On May 10, Speak­er Wade Mark de­clared the seat va­cant, not­ing the by-elec­tion must be held with­in a 90-day pe­ri­od, that is, on or be­fore Au­gust 10.