Kevon Felmine

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date for Techi­er Vil­lage/Guapo in Point Fortin, Sher­win St Hillaire, be­lieves the post­pone­ment of Mon­day's vot­ing in his dis­trict favoured the PNM.Speak­ing near the Point Fortin RC School yes­ter­day, St Hillaire said peo­ple who had ini­tial­ly cho­sen to vote for an­oth­er par­ty on Mon­day had re­vert­ed to the PNM be­cause of Mon­day night's re­sults.

His com­ments fol­lowed claims by the MSJ that the sus­pen­sion of Mon­day's vot­ing could have led to the ma­nip­u­la­tion of the re­sults, as par­ties could have brought out ad­di­tion­al vot­ers to boost their chances.De­spite this, St Hillaire said, the PNM was al­ways go­ing to make a clean sweep in Point Fortin and the de­lay had on­ly in­creased the mar­gin of vic­to­ry."This is again based on some of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion this morn­ing from peo­ple who came from cast­ing their votes," he said.

"Those who may have con­sid­ered an al­ter­na­tive than the PNM in­di­cat­ed that they had switched back, and those who may have been dis­en­chant­ed for what­ev­er rea­son and were un­de­cid­ed on vot­ing de­cid­ed this time they were go­ing to en­sure that they were go­ing to vote."

On Mon­day, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) sus­pend­ed vot­ing at the Guapo Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in the Techi­er Vil­lage/Guapo dis­trict and the Point Fortin RC School in the New­lands/Ma­haica dis­trict, where the wrong bal­lot pa­pers had been sent to the polling sta­tions.The EBC is­sued an ad­vi­so­ry, alert­ing vot­ers that the af­fect­ed polling sta­tions would be re­opened yes­ter­day morn­ing.The EBC's chief elec­tion of­fi­cer Ramesh Nanan said yes­ter­day vot­ing ran smooth­ly.

"Things are run­ning smooth­ly as far as the in­for­ma­tion that has come to me. Around 11 am in 4696 (Techi­er Vil­lage/Guapo), 73 peo­ple had vot­ed and around the same time, at 4730 (New­lands/Ma­haica) 66 peo­ple had vot­ed," Nanan said.He said giv­en the short space of time, the EBC did all it could to alert elec­tors that the polls would be re­opened.

St Hi­laire said af­ter Mon­day's tal­ly, he was al­ready lead­ing in his dis­trict, with over 500 votes, and be­lieved yes­ter­day vot­ing would have giv­en the PNM a greater pro­por­tion­al vic­to­ry.Al­though ad­mit­ting that yes­ter­day's vot­er turnout was low­er than Mon­day, Point Fortin may­or Clyde Paul said the bor­ough re­mained and will con­tin­ue to be a PNM strong­hold."My peo­ple were on the scene out there and they have said so," Paul said."From our ex­it polls in those two sta­tions up to the time they closed, we were lead­ing, we were ahead.

"In fact, 4696 polling sta­tion in the Guapo area is the strongest in the en­tire con­stituen­cy. We were lead­ing by close to 300 and the same thing would have ap­plied to the RC school there."Asked if he felt the sus­pen­sion could have af­fect­ed the PNM's chances to cop all the al­der­men po­si­tions in the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion, he said they were guar­an­teed at least three.

"Prob­a­bly, in hind­sight, when we were look­ing at the pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the dis­tri­b­u­tion of al­der­men, we will have to look and see the re­sults as they come in. I am sure we are go­ing to get three, based on the fig­ures we have won col­lec­tive­ly."De­spite be­ing in a joy­ous mood, he said he felt the PNM's ma­chin­ery had bro­ken down in Siparia, where it should have got a few seats.