Claims of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and un­fair­ness sur­faced in at least three con­stituen­cies de­spite the pres­ence of in­de­pen­dent ob­servers said Dr Fuad Khan and Ra­mona Ram­di­al as the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions kicked off un­der stormy skies on Sun­day.

Dr Khan who was jostling for the post of po­lit­i­cal leader said the Star slate led by his ri­val Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued send­ing out text mes­sages on elec­tion day, re­mind­ing peo­ple to vote for the “Stars.”

He said polling agents from the Star slate were can­vass­ing and UNC MPs sat in the polling sta­tions of their con­stituen­cies look­ing on while peo­ple vot­ed, a clear vi­o­la­tion of elec­tion pro­ce­dures.

Mean­while, Ram­di­al al­leged some UNC par­ty card hold­ers were be­ing al­lowed to vote al­though they were not on the of­fi­cial vot­ing list and this was un­fair to the op­posers of the Star slate.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar chal­lenged Dr Khan, Ram­di­al and any oth­er mem­ber to bring ev­i­dence to sup­port their claims of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter she cast her bal­lot at Par­vati Girls Hin­du Col­lege, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said every­thing was above board.

“We have ob­servers and every can­di­date is in­vit­ed to send ob­servers. If they have ev­i­dence bring it. Peo­ple who have cards and whose names are not on a list should not be al­lowed to vote be­cause that par­ty card­hold­er could go in every con­stituen­cy and vote,” she said.

She added: “That is not sup­posed to hap­pen and if that hap­pens, they have an agent, they should write it down and chal­lenge it!”

She not­ed that out of 18 po­si­tions, on­ly three are be­ing con­test­ed by Dr Khan, Ram­di­al and for­mer Min­is­ter Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh who wants to be the new par­ty or­gan­is­er.

The rains, she added, could have al­so kept peo­ple away from the polls.

Asked what will hap­pen to her op­posers, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed: “There is a space at the par­ty for all of them, whichev­er way it goes. They are wel­come. One can­di­date said we re­ject­ed and ex­pelled peo­ple, but that is not so! That does not hap­pen. We have not told peo­ple you are re­ject­ed,or are out­casts. No, we have not done that.”

She point­ed out, “When we went up against Vas­ant and he lost, I of­fered him back his seat.”

She al­so said in the in­ter­est of trans­paren­cy her Star slate de­cid­ed not to gath­er at the par­ty head­quar­ters when the polls close be­cause all the bal­lot box­es were ex­pect­ed to go there for count­ing.

More than 110,000 names are on the elec­toral list as reg­is­tered UNC mem­bers but up to the late evening, less than 10 per cent of the vot­ers had turned out to vote.

Mean­while, Dr Khan said it was not an is­sue whether the op­posers will be vic­timised or wel­comed back to serve in the par­ty.

“With the lev­el of elec­toral un­fair­ness that I am see­ing it is hard­pressed to un­der­stand how the peo­ple who run the par­ty ex­pect the op­pos­er to feel com­fort­able serv­ing un­der a leader who is com­fort­able with this lev­el of elec­toral un­fair­ness. To me that is a se­ri­ous thing,” he said. 

Ram­di­al who is con­test­ing the post of elec­tions of­fi­cer said her polling agents picked up on ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties at Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Ca­roni East and San Fer­nan­do West.

Ram­di­al said she is com­pil­ing a list of names which she plans to take to the UNC elec­tions com­mit­tee.

Mean­while, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he felt the cam­paign was clean and all went well for the elec­tions.