RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA | Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Vot­er turnout in the new­ly el­e­vat­ed bor­ough of Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion start­ed low this morn­ing.

The el­der­ly and in­firm were among most ear­ly vot­ers at the 6 am open­ing, in­clud­ing Lloyd Bak­er, a vi­su­al­ly im­paired re­tired sea­man who has lived abroad for many years.

Re­flect­ing on his ded­i­ca­tion to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, Bak­er said:

"I was a sea­man for years. When I worked abroad, I used to come back to vote. The Eng­lish peo­ple used to tell me that it is im­por­tant to vote, and I used to do just that. I will nev­er stop vot­ing," show­ing his ink-stained fin­ger with pride.

As Lloyd left the polling sta­tion with the as­sis­tance of his care­tak­er Joanet­ta Bal­lah, Lily Mo­hammed, an­oth­er se­nior cit­i­zen, dis­played her vot­ing fin­ger out­side the Av­o­cat Vedic School at Siparia Old Road, Av­o­cat. De­spite feel­ing un­well on elec­tion day, Mo­hammed was de­ter­mined to vote.

"I had to come out to­day even though I am not feel­ing too well. I am dizzy right now," she re­marked.

Out­side the La Div­ina Pas­to­ra Church in Siparia, two polling sta­tions were abuzz with ac­tiv­i­ty. At the St Brigid's Girls RC School, area man­ag­er Andy Bernard was busy or­ga­niz­ing trans­port for vot­ers.

Bernard, who is sup­port­ing can­di­date Ka­maludeen Ghany, praised the vot­ing pro­ce­dure.

"Every­thing is go­ing smooth­ly in the Siparia West/Av­o­cat area. We are try­ing to help peo­ple as best as pos­si­ble," he said.

He con­firmed that their tents were com­pli­ant with reg­u­la­tions.

Mean­while, Ghany echoed Bernard's sen­ti­ments, say­ing:

"We have had no prob­lems so far."

An­oth­er ear­ly vot­er, Wel­come Paul, en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly said he was the first to cast a bal­lot to­day.

"I wake up at 5 am and come here. I al­ways said I want to be the first per­son to vote, and I am here," he said. Judy Gould, who joined him, al­so ap­pre­ci­at­ed the seam­less vot­ing process.

Mean­while, out­side the South Oropouche RC School, which housed two polling booths, pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer Mar­lon Ma­habir said there were no breach­es or dis­crep­an­cies in the vot­ing process.

Can­di­date for Av­o­cat North/San Fran­cique Dood­nath Mayrhoo, who vot­ed at Av­o­cat Vedic School, al­so agreed that the vot­ing process was pro­gress­ing well.

"It took me less than two min­utes to cast my vote. We have a slow turnout, but we are see­ing peo­ple show­ing an in­ter­est in vot­ing. I am not dis­ap­point­ed, I know dur­ing the day, more will turn out. Usu­al­ly, lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions don't see the same turnout as gen­er­al elec­tions, but I am op­ti­mistic more peo­ple will par­tic­i­pate to­day."

The Cor­po­ra­tion, which re­cent­ly achieved Bor­ough sta­tus, serves al­most 87,000 res­i­dents across 63 com­mu­ni­ties.

Siparia boasts over 73,000 reg­is­tered vot­ers across nine elec­toral re­gions, five of which are held by the UNC and four by the PNM.

Siparia ranks sec­ond in vot­er turnouts among all 14 re­gion­al and mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tions. Dur­ing the pre­vi­ous elec­tion, the turnout was 41.82 per cent.