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Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Smooth by-election process in Quinam/Morne Diablo

by

Sascha Wilson
462 days ago
20240618

Slow and smooth.

These were the con­sis­tent re­spons­es at polling sta­tions in the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment By-elec­tion yes­ter­day.

When the polls opened at 6 am, there were no long lines and this trend ap­peared to be con­stant at the six polling sta­tions through­out the day. 

Nev­er­the­less, vot­ers of vary­ing ages, in­clud­ing first-time vot­ers and the el­der­ly, made their way to polling sta­tions to ex­er­cise their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands no ma­jor hic­cups or in­ci­dents were re­port­ed. How­ev­er, there was a heavy pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers en­sur­ing that the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) rules were fol­lowed.

Proud­ly dis­play­ing her stained fin­ger, first-time vot­er Ang­ie Dhan­raj de­clared, “Change needs to be done. We need a lil change in the com­mu­ni­ty so I de­cid­ed to come out. One vote could make a dif­fer­ence.”

Ac­com­pa­nied by her moth­er Sav­it­ri, Dhan­raj, 25, vot­ed at the Morne Di­a­blo RC School.

“I thought it would have been dif­fer­ent. But, it was good. It was calm and every­thing went good.”

De­spite a brief down­pour yes­ter­day morn­ing, sev­er­al vot­ers, in­clud­ing el­der­ly cou­ple De­nase, 83, and Du­lari Ma­haraj, 81, were un­de­terred.

Sin­gle fa­ther Jadoonath Nand­lal, who rode his bike to the polling sta­tion, said he en­coun­tered no prob­lems.

“I feel nice. I can’t com­plain,” he said, adding that he want­ed the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive to up­lift chil­dren and fo­cus on their ed­u­ca­tion.  PNM can­di­date An­der­son Nanan and UNC can­di­date Sarah Sookdeo vot­ed at the Kubairs­ingh Pe­nal Rock Road Hin­du School. As the doors opened at 6 am, Nanan was the first to vote.

Show­ing his red-stained fin­ger, Nanan de­clared it was his lucky fin­ger, and that he was con­fi­dent he would win.

Sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly, Nanan said, “A large turnout. I say PNM 2,500, UNC 18 (hun­dred). That is my pre­dic­tion for this.”

Nanan al­so took time away from the elec­tion to at­tend the Eid Al Ad­ha, al­so known as Bakra Eid, ser­vice at the Rock Road As­ja Masjid in Pe­nal.

Sookdeo, who vot­ed al­most two hours lat­er, was con­fi­dent that she would re­turn to the seat to the UNC.

“I am con­fi­dent be­cause we did all the nec­es­sary ground­work. I think the elec­torate is aware of what needs to be done, in terms of the is­sues they are fac­ing and they will come out and make the right de­ci­sion.” 

She was ac­com­pa­nied by the UNC-con­trolled Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gow­tam Ma­haraj, who as­sured they would work with Nanan if he wins.

“We are very am­i­ca­ble. We are very peace­ful and lov­ing as you can see,” he said. 

The by-elec­tion was trig­gered fol­low­ing the death of UNC coun­cil­lor Diptee Ram­nath in De­cem­ber. The seat, one of ten elec­toral dis­tricts in Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, is re­gard­ed as a safe UNC seat, but in 2003 the PNM took con­trol af­ter coun­cil­lor Ram­nath switched al­le­giance and then crossed back to the UNC.

While there are 8,369 el­i­gi­ble vot­ers in the Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo dis­trict, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from both sides mon­i­tor­ing the elec­tions es­ti­mat­ed that the turnout may have been low­er than 30 per cent.


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