Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is­sued sev­er­al elec­tion day com­plaints up to the close of the poll yes­ter­day, ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj said it had be­come ev­i­dent the par­ty was sys­tem­a­tis­ing griev­ances to seed doubt in the minds of in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers and lay the ground­work for post-elec­tion lit­i­ga­tion. He said it was a sign of des­per­a­tion.

“Hav­ing my­self nav­i­gat­ed the com­plex­i­ties of elec­toral dis­putes and hav­ing fought to up­hold the in­tegri­ty of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions, I recog­nise this tac­tic for what it is, which is a strat­e­gy borne not of prin­ci­ple, but of po­lit­i­cal des­per­a­tion,” Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj said via a state­ment yes­ter­day, cit­ing the “weapon­is­ing” of elec­tion day chal­lenges.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion was ob­served by mis­sions from both Cari­com and the Com­mon­wealth.

The UNC had, over the last ten years, pre­sent­ed var­i­ous le­gal chal­lenges to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-led gov­ern­ment in Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj’s name. He had been re­peat­ed­ly hailed by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “le­gal lu­mi­nary.”

While he is still a UNC mem­ber and has not re­signed, it was con­firmed yes­ter­day that Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj’s sup­port was not with the par­ty for the elec­tion.

Re­spond­ing to the par­ty’s al­le­ga­tions of elec­tion day ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, he said: “Over the course of this most re­cent elec­tion, re­ports of chal­lenges sur­round­ing the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) have been re­ver­ber­at­ing through­out the na­tion, and while these claims de­mand our at­ten­tion, they al­so call for per­spec­tive.

“Let me be clear, ab­solute­ly no elec­toral process is with­out flaw. The ma­chin­ery of democ­ra­cy, es­pe­cial­ly when op­er­at­ed by tem­po­rary staff man­ag­ing thou­sands of polling sta­tions, will in­evitably en­counter pro­ce­dur­al hic­cups. These are not unique to this elec­tion, nor to this na­tion. They are the grow­ing pains of any so­ci­ety that en­trusts its peo­ple with the sa­cred du­ty of self-gov­er­nance.”

Bal­gobn-Ma­haraj added, “The rea­son I have cho­sen to ad­dress this, how­ev­er, is not the ex­is­tence of these chal­lenges, but the trou­bling pat­tern of how they are be­ing weaponised. It has be­come ev­i­dent that the UNC is sys­tem­a­tis­ing griev­ances, not sole­ly to ad­vo­cate for ac­count­abil­i­ty, but to seed doubt in the minds of in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers and lay the ground­work for post-elec­tion lit­i­ga­tion.

“To those who may have en­coun­tered some of these is­sues, I as­sure you that your con­cerns mat­ter, as con­stant vig­i­lance is the lifeblood of democ­ra­cy. But when crit­i­cisms morph in­to a sus­tained cam­paign to erode trust in the very in­sti­tu­tions that safe­guard our free­doms, we cross in­to dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry.”

He called on UNC mem­bers not to flout democ­ra­cy.

“For years, the UNC has right­ly de­mand­ed trans­paren­cy and fair­ness. Yet to­day, by mag­ni­fy­ing iso­lat­ed im­per­fec­tions in­to a false nar­ra­tive of sys­temic fail­ure, they risk un­der­min­ing the same ideals they claim to cham­pi­on,” he said.

“Democ­ra­cy re­quires dis­agree­ment and it thrives on de­bate, but it ab­solute­ly can­not sur­vive on this lev­el of cyn­i­cism. To my friends in the UNC, I urge you to not con­flate the in­evitable tur­bu­lence of democ­ra­cy with its col­lapse. To the staff of the EBC, or­di­nary cit­i­zens per­form­ing an ex­tra­or­di­nary ser­vice, know that your labour is seen, and your ded­i­ca­tion to the coun­try is val­ued,” Bal­go­b­in-Ma­haraj added.