As the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) gets set to host its ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions to­day at the Va­len­cia Sec­ondary School, the Con­cerned Par­ents Move­ment of T&T (CPMTT) is fear­ful that scores of el­i­gi­ble vot­ers, in­clud­ing per­sons from To­ba­go, will be turned away due to a lack of trans­paren­cy and in­ter­fer­ence.

Ar­tic­u­lat­ing con­cerns dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence in Wood­brook yes­ter­day, CPMTT pres­i­dent Clarence Men­doza said they had re­ceived nu­mer­ous calls from par­ents want­i­ng them to stop to­day’s elec­tion.

Not­ing this was not an op­tion they would be ex­er­cis­ing, Men­doza said, “The elec­tion will go on ac­cord­ing­ly and as planned, based on the di­rec­tive from the court.”

Al­though the CPMTT does have op­tion of fil­ing an­oth­er in­junc­tion to stop to­day’s elec­tion, as they did back in 2020, Men­doza said they do not in­tend to take any fur­ther le­gal ac­tion, as this elec­tion is long over­due and cou­pled with the slow wheels of jus­tice, it was just not prac­ti­cal or ben­e­fi­cial to the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

A mo­tion can be moved to­day at the Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates for a 90-day de­fer­ral of the elec­tion, but again Men­doza said the CPMTT would not be go­ing this route. Hav­ing cre­at­ed an elec­tion pol­i­cy hand­book as in­struct­ed by the court be­fore, Men­doza said the time lost and the lack of clear con­sen­sus, which he said was im­ped­ing the or­gain­sa­tion’s op­er­a­tions.

Mean­while, it is be­lieved in­struc­tions have been giv­en to pre­vent Men­doza and the 13 oth­er mem­bers who are cur­rent­ly be­fore the court from ac­cess­ing the school’s com­pound and al­so par­tic­i­pat­ing in the elec­tion.

How­ev­er, Men­doza as­sured that the CPMTT plans to be at the lo­ca­tion with le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He chal­lenged the NPTA’s in­ter­im com­mit­tee to say why reg­is­tered mem­bers were be­ing pre­vent­ed from vot­ing in to­day’s elec­tion. He claimed that in the Vic­to­ria Re­gion, two schools had been re­moved from the elec­toral list, along with at least 19 in­di­vid­u­als and 12 co­or­di­na­tors who were fi­nan­cial mem­bers in good stand­ing.

The south-east­ern re­gion was al­so not pro­vid­ed with a copy of the elec­toral list, which Men­doza said meant they had been com­plete­ly banned; while in the Ca­roni Re­gion, sev­en schools that had paid dues were re­moved from the elec­toral list.

He called on the rel­e­vant of­fi­cials to look in­to what was hap­pen­ing and why there was in­ter­fer­ence in what is sup­posed to be a free, fair and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion process.

—An­na-Lisa Paul

Mean­while, ques­tions are al­so be­ing asked as to why monies col­lect­ed from mem­bers af­ter 2018 have been re­tained by the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, while those pay­ing dues af­ter 2018 were not be­ing al­lowed to cast their vote. He said once a unit paid their year­ly fi­nan­cial dues of $300 each, they would be el­i­gi­ble to vote in the elec­tion.

“If we have an elec­toral list, it should be pub­lished in the news­pa­per or it should be pub­lished some­where that mem­bers can go there and say ‘well, I can vote to­mor­row or I can’t’. So mem­bers are dis­grun­tled at this point in time and are ask­ing can we come? Should be come to Va­len­cia?”

Say­ing mem­bers were com­ing from as far away as Ce­dros and Pe­nal to cast their bal­lots, CPMTT PRO Shami­la Ra­heem was al­so crit­i­cal of the dis­re­gard and dis­re­spect met­ed out to the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this month of Ra­madan.

She ques­tioned the ba­sis on which the elec­tion lo­ca­tion had been se­lect­ed, as she said, “No con­sid­er­a­tion was giv­en in terms of time, spe­cif­ic du­ra­tion of the elec­tion and when ex­act­ly do they have to come out and vote.”

She added, “Mus­lims fast­ing for the month of Ra­madan…their last meal is done at 4.30 in the morn­ing and they go un­til 6.30 in the af­ter­noon.”

Press­ing for an­swers over why a more cen­tral venue or ad­di­tion­al venues ac­com­mo­dat­ing mem­bers from all across Trinidad was not se­lect­ed, Ra­heem asked, “Was this done de­lib­er­ate­ly?”

—An­na-Lisa Paul