Gail Alexan­der

Com­plaints and ac­cu­sa­tions about elec­tion ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties arose in var­i­ous places yes­ter­day, but one thing all po­lit­i­cal par­ties not­ed alike was an ini­tial low vot­er turnout.

The late open­ing of some polling sta­tions, sud­den shifts of oth­ers and al­leged can­vass­ing were all part of yes­ter­day's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion is­sues.

Com­plaints came main­ly from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of­fi­cials as well as some Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment ar­eas.

A very slow vot­er turnout in the morn­ing picked up a bit in the evening be­fore close of polls.

Among com­plaints, UNC at­tor­ney Sad­dam Ho­sein said po­lice were called in af­ter he lodged a com­plaint that a PNM mock polling sta­tion was sit­u­at­ed too close to the re­al polling sta­tion at AS­JA com­plex, Char­lieville.

"Rules are clear, there must be no gath­er­ing 100 yards from the sta­tion and the PNM's elec­tion para­pher­na­lia was in clear sight. Elec­tion and Bound­ary Com­mis­sion of­fi­cials mea­sured it and PNM's sta­tion was moved. Our sta­tion across the road was al­so moved," Ho­sein told the Guardian.

Ho­sein said a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion oc­curred at the Char­lieville Pres­by­ter­ian school, where he al­so filed a re­port to the EBC on al­leged can­vass­ing by peo­ple dressed in blue in a sta­tion wag­on.

The EBC came in for stiff crit­i­cism from the Na­tion­al Sol­i­dar­i­ty As­sem­bly (NSA) and the UNC re­gard­ing late no­tice on a shift of polling sta­tions in the Cal­i­for­nia-Pt Lisas seat.

The EBC is­sued no­tice of this around mid-morn­ing yes­ter­day. Polling sta­tion 3185 was shift­ed from Es­per­an­za Pri­ma­ry School to the Dow Vil­lage Pri­ma­ry School. Polling sta­tion 3190 was shift­ed from Dow Vil­lage Pri­ma­ry to Es­per­an­za Pri­ma­ry.

NSA leader Nir­van Ma­haraj, al­so not­ing a low turnout even in the af­ter­noon, said the shift af­fect­ed NSA vot­ers who were un­aware the sta­tions were shift­ed and some re­turned home.

UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, at 4 pm, said, "We've filed a com­plaint with EBC's CEO Ramesh Nanan. It's high­ly sus­pi­cious, shifts were done so sud­den­ly in this PNM-held seat. EBC didn't no­ti­fy any lev­el of the UNC. Vot­ers were con­fused and up­set–to­tal­ly un­sat­is­fac­to­ry on EBC's part."

UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath said the polling sta­tions at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, didn't open un­til near­ly 8 am–in­stead of the man­dat­ed 6 am time–due to late po­lice pres­ence. He not­ed low turnout al­so.

In Princes Town, Padarath said the Corinth and Cedar Hill sta­tions were split and shift­ed and UNC of­fi­cials weren't no­ti­fied of this un­til yes­ter­day morn­ing.

"When we asked why, the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer said the EBC was sup­posed to tell us. We re­mind­ed him he was an EBC rep­re­sen­ta­tive. We asked him to put in writ­ing the date of the late no­tice, which was done with­out con­sul­ta­tion, in or­der for us to re­port it to EBC."

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice Leader David Ab­du­lah, ac­knowl­edg­ing low turnout al­so, said the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer in two Point Fortin ar­eas re­fused to al­low MSJ polling agents in­to the sta­tion. This was re­solved.

Some neg­a­tiv­i­ty oc­curred - EBC

Some "neg­a­tiv­i­ty" oc­curred in yes­ter­day's Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion due to ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror con­cern­ing the Cal­i­for­nia-Pt Lisas seat, Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion chief elec­tion of­fi­cer Ramesh Nanan con­firmed.

He was com­ment­ing on the switch­ing of polling sta­tions in Es­per­an­za and Dow Vil­lage which was done yes­ter­day morn­ing. He said it was an er­ror by the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer for that seat.

He said mi­nor hic­cups and "hu­man er­ror" af­fect­ed process­es in some ar­eas yes­ter­day.

Asked about oth­er al­leged is­sues–in­clud­ing the shift of sta­tions in Princes Town–Nanan said any re­port would be at­tend­ed to. He said the EBC had had re­ports that vot­ing was a "bit slow, but con­tin­u­ous."

PNM HITS AL­LEGED UNC CAN­VASS­ING

PNM of­fi­cials in St Joseph brought in le­gal as­sis­tance yes­ter­day to deal with al­leged com­plaints of Op­po­si­tion can­vass­ing, the T&T Guardian was told.

The mat­ter oc­curred at polling sta­tions at Cipri­ani Labour Col­lege, Val­sayn.

PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford al­so said he'd not­ed a low turnout, but de­clined com­ment on what might have caused it.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who had not­ed a low turnout when he vot­ed around 8.30 am yes­ter­day in West­moor­ings, was asked about al­leged UNC cam­paign­ing. Row­ley said he hadn't heard of it him­self, but wasn't sur­prised.

"If this (com­plaint) is so, it's a mat­ter for the au­thor­i­ties. If there were com­plaints in any par­tic­u­lar dis­trict, we have ob­servers and scru­ti­neers who will han­dle that."

On per­ceived elec­tion vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing the al­leged re­cent shoot­ing of an In­de­pen­dent can­di­date,Row­ley said the vi­o­lence was a dis­turb­ing de­vel­op­ment.

"No­body wants the con­test for of­fice to get be­yond ver­bal ex­hor­ta­tions. Vi­o­lence of any kind is to be ab­hor­rred," he said

"I saw com­ments from se­cu­ri­ty au­thor­i­ties re­gard­ing Pa­lo Seco where it might not be at­trib­uted to the elec­tion cam­paign. But a can­di­date be­ing shot in elec­tions can on­ly be list­ed as elec­tion vi­o­lence un­less you can show ev­i­dence to the con­trary. This is a very se­ri­ous de­vel­op­ment which ought not to be en­cour­aged and the per­pe­tra­tors ought to be found and dealt with im­me­di­ate­ly."