An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

There was a slow stream of vot­ers in the San Juan/Laven­tille dis­trict yes­ter­day, with no re­ports of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties or dis­crep­an­cies at polling sta­tions.

Show­ing his stained fin­ger as he left the polling sta­tion at the Barataria South Sec­ondary School just be­fore 10 am, 70-year-old Bho­la Singh smiled and said: “Things were nice and qui­et.”

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment PNM) can­di­date for Cale­do­nia/Up­per Mal­ick Kwe­si An­toine, who vot­ed a few vote min­utes lat­er, proud­ly de­clared: “I vote in Barataria for Kim­ber­ly Small.”

Asked what feed­back he had re­ceived from the elec­torate, An­toine said: “I am see­ing peo­ple who I would have seen through­out when I went to the dif­fer­ent polling sta­tions.”

He said the on­ly anom­aly that arose was the re­lo­ca­tion of a polling sta­tion with­in the Mal­ick dis­trict but not­ed “things were put in place to sort out that.”

An­toine said he was con­fi­dent about win­ning his elec­toral dis­trict.

“I did the work, so I have noth­ing to be fright­ened about. I did the ground­work like so many oth­er PNM can­di­dates,” he said

On the is­sue of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form, An­toine said he felt it was “the right choice for the whole coun­try”. “Some­thing had­da be wrong with you if you don’t sup­port lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form at this time,” he said.

For­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Safraz Ali, the Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (PDP) can­di­date in El So­cor­ro/Aranguez North, spoke as he left the Aranguez Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School af­ter vot­ing.

He said he placed his mark­er next to the can­di­date he felt “would best rep­re­sent me in the low­er part of Aranguez.”

“The vot­er turnout was a lit­tle slow this morn­ing. I am an­tic­i­pat­ing a good turn out on the side I am rep­re­sent­ing,” Ali added.

He said in the Don Miguel area, a polling agent re­port­ed a dis­crep­an­cy with the num­ber of reg­is­tered vot­ers not match­ing the list pro­vid­ed by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC).

“In the grand scheme of things ... that to me, was just how the EBC as­signed num­bers to per­sons.”

Joanne Hoyte, who was in Barataria on be­half of the PDP, re­port­ed: “The re­cep­tion on the ground while we were can­vass­ing was very pos­i­tive. Peo­ple are look­ing for a change.”

UNC can­di­date for Aranguez/Warn­er Vil­lage Amit Sook­nanan, said he was sat­is­fied with the vot­ing process, as the can­di­dates for the var­i­ous par­ties as well as the EBC of­fi­cials were “all good peo­ple.”

“I am not see­ing any­thing ir­reg­u­lar. I am see­ing a slow­er process this morn­ing but af­ter lunch the crowd def­i­nite­ly start­ed pick­ing up,” he said.

Peo­ple’s Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) can­di­date for St Ann’s Cas­cade/Mon Re­pos West, Adan­na Richards, who stood out­side the Cas­cade School for the Deaf af­ter cast­ing her bal­lot around noon, said: “Every­one is now rolling in at their nor­mal pace as they usu­al­ly do. In the morn­ing time you would have more of the el­der­ly com­ing in and at lunchtime ... it would be a lit­tle more busy as the work­ing folks should be com­ing in.”

Richards said there were no re­ports of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties.

Asked what feed­back she re­ceived from the elec­torate dur­ing the cam­paign, she said: “The feed­back from the ground is heavy. We have Laven­tille that is up­set that we don’t have enough can­di­dates in their dis­tricts be­cause they stat­ed they want­ed a com­plete change.”