Shal­iza Has­sanali &

Shane Su­perville

Hav­ing cap­tured 70 of 141 elec­toral dis­tricts in yes­ter­day’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clared vic­to­ry to her sup­port­ers and can­di­dates.

In her vic­to­ry speech at the UNC’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas last night, a jovial Per­sad-Bisses­sar broke down the fig­ures she had avail­able at the time.

Both the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the UNC tied with each oth­er, as they each se­cured sev­en mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions, the same out­come of the 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions.

In the 2019 LGE, the UNC won 67 elec­toral dis­tricts com­pared to 72 won by the PNM.

The two ad­di­tion­al seats cre­at­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), Cou­va West/Roys­to­nia and Ma­yaro North, were cap­tured by the UNC.

The UNC, Per­sad-Bisses­sar boast­ed, al­so made in­roads in PNM strong­hold ar­eas.

“I do not have the fi­nal num­bers but we would have gained the pop­u­lar vote, that is more votes than PNM has.

“In Cou­va, we have all 14 out of 14 seats. It used to be 14, now we’ve won 15 out of 15. In Ma­yaro, we had five out of six, we now have six out of sev­en.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told sup­port­ers, who were in a cel­e­bra­to­ry mood, that the UNC re­tained Siparia, Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro, Ma­yaro, Pe­nal-Debe, San­gre Grande and Princes Town.

She said the coali­tion be­tween the UNC and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), led by for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, had made sig­nif­i­cant in­roads in the PNM strong­hold of Diego Mar­tin.

“In Diego Mar­tin, the ac­com­mo­da­tion gave PNM a run for their mon­ey. Let us not for­get our ac­com­mo­da­tion part­ners Cap­tain Gary Grif­fith and Mr Jack Warn­er.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said she was pleased with her par­ty’s per­for­mance, not­ing that while they had lim­it­ed funds at their dis­pos­al com­pared to the PNM, they were suc­cess­ful in re­tain­ing dis­tricts.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so raised con­cerns over al­le­ga­tions of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties at polling sta­tions, re­fer­ring to claims of bal­lot box tam­per­ing for spe­cial vot­ers and pay­ing for votes, which she said were se­ri­ous elec­tion of­fences.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the par­ty’s at­tor­neys would pro­vide guid­ance on these is­sues.

When Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at the UNC’s head­quar­ters, she was mobbed by throngs of sup­port­ers who gath­ered in the carpark. She was al­so greet­ed with sounds of a lo­cal rhythm sec­tion and tas­sa side, draw­ing cheers from a ju­bi­lant crowd.

In an ear­li­er in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, the UNC’s deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Khadi­jah Ameen, al­so ex­pressed con­cerns over can­vass­ing at the gate of a polling sta­tion in Va­len­cia.

Ameen said she spent most of elec­tion morn­ing in San Fer­nan­do and was con­cerned that a PNM MP was seen en­ter­ing and leav­ing polling sta­tions.

“I ob­served the MP for San Fer­nan­do West en­ter­ing polling sta­tions on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, which I found should not have hap­pened but in any case, any sort of in­tim­i­da­tion of vot­ers should be con­demned.”

Even af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered her speech, crowds of sup­port­ers so­cialised and lin­gered at the par­ty’s of­fice.