CARISA LEE

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The colour of T-shirts be­ing worn by par­ty sup­port­ers yes­ter­day dur­ing vot­ing in Port-of-Spain cre­at­ed some con­fu­sion.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date for Bel­mont South Er­ic Black­man said some of his sup­port­ers were turned away from the polling sta­tion be­cause of the colour of their T-shirts.

“I had an is­sue with two of my agents when some of­fi­cers told them they couldn’t en­ter the polling sta­tion be­cause of the at­tire they had. So I went up to the polling sta­tion and got it rec­ti­fied be­cause the colour was com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, it is a green ... and I don’t know how they see­ing green as yel­low,” Black­man said.

He said the mis­un­der­stand­ing was re­solved and the UNC had no oth­er is­sues yes­ter­day.

“It was very slow, I must say it’s go­ing lil slow but as usu­al with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions,” Black­man said.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­di­date for East Dry Riv­er Clint Bap­tiste who vot­ed at St Hil­da’s Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School said when he went at 6.30 am the polling sta­tion was rel­a­tive­ly emp­ty. But he said every­thing was go­ing smooth­ly.

“I was out in less than five min­utes,” he said.

How­ev­er, Bap­tiste and his team were all seen wear­ing bur­gundy which some said was close to the colour red, used by the PNM.

Bap­tiste said it was the colour that was giv­en to them.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to the PNM’s Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing, who said that if any PNM team used that colour it was be­cause of the avail­abil­i­ty of bulk t-shirts.

But ac­cord­ing to the EBC, the elec­torate can wear any colour on polling day. How­ev­er, it said peo­ple are not be per­mit­ted in­to a polling sta­tion wear­ing the em­blems or lo­gos of po­lit­i­cal par­ties or with the words “VOTE FOR” on their ar­ti­cles of cloth­ing.

“This is not a cause for con­cern,” EBC com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er Bob­bi Jef­frey-Hicks said.

The Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion has 12 elec­toral dis­tricts and this year there are five con­tend­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

These in­clude the PNM, the UNC, The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), and in­de­pen­dent can­di­date Vi­vian John­son.

None of the polling sta­tions Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed had long lines. In­stead, vot­ers were seen trick­ling in.

John­son said the vot­ing process went smooth­ly, but his moth­er, who was the first vot­er, had some is­sues which were quick­ly rec­ti­fied.

PDP can­di­date for Bel­mont North and West Fuad Abu Bakr al­so en­coun­tered some hic­cups when he tried to vote at St Fran­cis Boys’ Col­lege.

“Just a lit­tle mix-up ba­si­cal­ly at the in­for­ma­tion desk. She (woman at in­for­ma­tion desk) just didn’t fol­low my name right across and told me the wrong polling sta­tion,” Abu Bakr ex­plained.

He was, how­ev­er, al­lowed to vote.

Vot­er Mau­reen Williams said she was at the polling sta­tion from as ear­ly as 6 am and was out quick­ly.

Many old­er peo­ple were spot­ted leav­ing the polling sta­tions, in­clud­ing Hazel Smith, who proud­ly said she has been vot­ing since 1977.