SASCHA WIL­SON

The large crowds and hype dur­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign was not re­flect­ed in the vot­er turnout in the polling sta­tions with­in the Ma­yaro-Rio Claro area. There were in­ter­vals dur­ing the day where peo­ple were not even en­ter­ing the polling sta­tions while oth­er times there was just a trick­le of vot­ers.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray con­firmed the slow flow of vot­ers with­in the six elec­toral dis­tricts. Paray said while there were no ma­jor ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, there were mi­nor hic­cups where peo­ple could not find their names on the list. How­ev­er, that was re­solved. He was op­ti­mistic that lat­er to­day there would be an in­crease in the num­ber of vot­ers at the polling sta­tions. "Be­cause of the speed and pace of the cam­paign it was ex­pect­ed that peo­ple will be lined up at the polling sta­tions from 6 pm." The Ma­yaro-Rio Claro seat is one of the cor­po­ra­tions that could ei­ther go to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress or the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. In the 2016 elec­tions, the UNC won four seats while the PNM held two.

Enayeg Yathali, 64, said it took him about a minute to cast his vote at the Mafek­ing Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in the mar­gin­al seat of Co­cal/Mafek­ing. He saw on­ly a few peo­ple wait­ing to vote, but as far as he was aware, there were no hic­cups.

Across at St Therese RC School, in the mar­gin­al seat of Rio Claro South/Cat­shill, Michelle Ram­per­sad cast her vote for the first time. Ram­per­sad, 19, said it was eas­i­er than she ex­pect­ed. “It was pret­ty easy, it was nice, it was fun.”

Le­an­der Ram­lal had no one to look af­ter her two chil­dren, ages sev­en years and eight months, so she took them with her to vote at the St Michael’s AC School. How­ev­er, Rio Claro res­i­dent Pal­too Aaron, said nei­ther he nor any of his eight oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers had any in­ter­est in stain­ing their fin­ger in this elec­tion. Aaron said he might not even vote in the gen­er­al elec­tion. “One of the rea­sons I not re­al­ly vot­ing is be­cause you don’t see the coun­cil­lors and them, it's on­ly elec­tion time you does see them, once or twice you might see them.”

At Princes Town Pres­by­ter­ian #2 Pri­ma­ry, Is­abel­la Per­sad said she had no prob­lems cast­ing her vote. "It was good. I just went in and gave the guy the pa­per. He check out every­thing, he mark out every­thing and make me sign my name. Then I make the x and throw the thing in the bal­lot box and then I come out." The po­lice said there were no re­ports of any in­ci­dents in these elec­toral dis­tricts.