At 1 pm Mon­day, long be­fore vot­ing for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions comes to an end, the UNC is pre­dict­ing that the PNM is like­ly to win the La Ro­maine seat. If this hap­pens, it means the PNM will en­ter in­to the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion—a UNC strong­hold.

The cau­tious pre­dic­tion was made by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dur­ing an in­ter­view with re­porters out­side the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre where he cast his bal­lot af­ter noon on Mon­day.

Asked to give an overview of the vot­ing process, Mooni­lal said there were re­ports of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties which were be­ing ad­dressed by the par­ty's lawyers.

Hav­ing walked the ground, Mooni­lal said the par­ty was look­ing at the new­ly cre­at­ed La Ro­maine seat as a chal­lenge. This seat falls un­der the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion which strad­dles the Oropouche East, Oropouche West, Siparia and Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cies.

Mooni­lal ex­plained that the La Ro­maine seat was cre­at­ed fol­low­ing bound­ary shifts by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

Be­cause of the shift, Mooni­lal said, there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty that it may bring enough votes for the PNM to have an al­der­man at the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

"I have been work­ing in the La Ro­maine elec­toral dis­trict so I know the chal­lenges. The bound­aries have changed and this is a new seat. It's a tough dis­trict to con­test be­cause of the bound­ary changes," Mooni­lal said.

He added that if the votes swung in favour of the PNM, there could be a PNM voice in the Pe­nal/Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion which has nine seats, all of which are cur­rent­ly held by the UNC.

Mooni­lal not­ed that this was not the first time that the PNM could have a foothold in the UNC-led cor­po­ra­tion. More than a decade ago, coun­cil­lor Diptee Ram­nath con­test­ed un­der the PNM and won his seat

"It is fore­see­able that the PNM can get an al­der­man but we are hop­ing that we can get the votes. We are cau­tious­ly op­ti­mistic that it will go to UNC," Mooni­lal added.

Ac­cord­ing to Mooni­lal, the par­ty had a hec­tic ground cam­paign.

"The UNC will get out the votes. This elec­tion will tell us and the PNM as well as how much we still have to do. This is re­al­ly a test piece a re­hearsal dress­ing for the gen­er­al elec­tion," he added.

But Mooni­lal said there were cer­tain ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties which had to be ad­dressed.

 "We had a prob­lem where po­lice of­fi­cers who in their zeal to as­sist EBC staff were han­dling EBC ma­te­ri­als and we spoke to the po­lice and it was sort­ed out. We al­so had il­le­gal mock sta­tions and cam­paign­ing on the road." He was hope­ful that vot­ing would have picked up by the af­ter­noon pe­ri­od.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the new La Ro­maine seat pre­sent­ed a chal­lenge.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter cast­ing her bal­lot at the Her­mitage Pres­by­ter­ian School, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was watch­ing the La Ro­maine seat close­ly.

"Be­cause of the change in bound­aries La Ro­maine is a very mar­gin­al seat. The same thing hap­pened in the Siparia Cor­po­ra­tion, they took a UNC seat and made it in­to a mar­gin­al. In the San Juan area, there were bound­ary changes that clear­ly worked against us. La Ro­maine is a chal­lenge but we will wait to see," she added.

Oropouche West MP Vidya Gayadeen-Gopeesingh, who al­so vot­ed at the Gulf View Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre with Mooni­lal, said she was al­so hope­ful that the vot­er turnout will in­crease as the day pro­gressed.