SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The vot­ing process was smooth with­in the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion elec­toral dis­tricts yes­ter­day.

How­ev­er, at the Vista­bel­la Re­gion­al Com­plex, one of the polling di­vi­sions of Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la, con­sid­ered one of the most hot­ly con­test­ed seats, the UNC threat­ened le­gal ac­tion over a pho­to­graph of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on a wall in­side the build­ing. The is­sue was first brought to the at­ten­tion of Guardian Me­dia by a con­cerned vot­er.

Col­in Chan­dler said he saw the pho­to­graph when he en­tered the build­ing and asked the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to re­move it, but was told that the pho­to was there be­cause the build­ing was a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre.

“I not­ed to her that if I were an im­par­tial vot­er and I didn’t know who I was go­ing to vote for on the day, when I walked in there, just see­ing the im­age or the like­ness, may have in­flu­enced the di­rec­tion that I want­ed to vote in,” said Chan­dler.

It is cus­tom­ary for State-run build­ings—schools, com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and min­istries—to have pic­tures of the sit­ting Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and line min­is­ter.

While the pho­to had no bear­ing on how he vot­ed, Chan­dler sug­gest­ed the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) dropped the ball on this mat­ter.

“I not­ed to them that on this day, this was not a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre it was an ex­cep­tion­al day, and the pic­ture ought to be re­moved. Al­so, that on this par­tic­u­lar day this is not a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, this is a polling sta­tion and there­fore the elec­tions and the vot­ing process ought to be held with­in the guide­lines of the es­tab­lished and the en­act­ed laws with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath, who ac­com­pa­nied can­di­date Sasha Ali to vote at the com­plex, said this par­tic­u­lar dis­trict was the “bat­tle­ground” in the cor­po­ra­tion and any ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties giv­ing any side an un­fair ad­van­tage ought to be ad­dressed. Threat­en­ing le­gal ac­tion de­pend­ing on the EBC’s re­sponse, Padarath said the com­mis­sion should be more mind­ful of such oc­cur­rences.

“We do be­lieve that it is un­fair. The EBC should have been more care­ful. There should have been a greater thrust to ex­am­ine these cen­tres and schools, that area be­ing used for any sym­bols, any pic­tures of any per­son­al­i­ties et cetera,” Padarath said.

Not­ing that sev­er­al vot­ers had al­so in­di­cat­ed that they had not re­ceived their polling cards, he said the EBC had suf­fi­cient time to rec­ti­fy such is­sues.

Padarath al­so com­plained that there were no pro­vi­sions for shel­ter and in­suf­fi­cient park­ing at that polling di­vi­sion.

Re­spond­ing to the is­sue con­cern­ing the pho­to­graph, EBC chief elec­tion of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope said that in such in­stances they would ask pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers to tape down or cov­er those types of pic­tures.

She said, “I’m sure if that has been brought to the at­ten­tion of the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for the re­spec­tive dis­trict, the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer would so ad­vise his or her pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers as to what ac­tion need­ed to take place there.”

Cops called in by Jayan­ti

Dur­ing the vot­ing process at the Les Ef­forts West/Cipero dis­trict, UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al had cause to call South­ern Di­vi­sion Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Richard Smith. This oc­curred af­ter the po­lice in­struct­ed them to re­move or cov­er up their sig­nage at the cam­paign of­fice of Les Ef­forts West/Cipero in­cum­bent can­di­date Rishi Bal­ram­s­ingh, at the cor­ner of Todd and West­wood Streets.

Lutch­me­di­al said the po­lice claimed they were cam­paign­ing as the of­fice was close to the San Fer­nan­do West Sec­ondary polling sta­tion. Ini­tial­ly, Lutch­me­di­al in­struct­ed sup­port­ers not to cov­er up the sig­nage and called on the po­lice to “bring a tape and come” to mea­sure the dis­tance from the polling sta­tion. She in­sist­ed that the cam­paign of­fice was more than 100 yards from the polling sta­tion in keep­ing with Sec­tion 91 of the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple’s Act.

“I had cause to speak to Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent of the South­ern Di­vi­sion to in­di­cate that we are well out­side of the 100 yards es­tab­lish­ment un­der the law and I have asked to look in­to it and to have a con­ver­sa­tion with his of­fi­cers. In the mean­time we will be hold­ing our hand,” she said.

When the po­lice re­turned, how­ev­er, she told them that if they is­sued sim­i­lar in­struc­tions to their op­po­nents at the of­fice of PNM Les Ef­fort East/Cipero in­cum­bent can­di­date Ryadd Ho­sein at the oth­er end of West­wood Street, they would com­ply. The PNM sup­port­ers com­plied with the of­fi­cers’ in­struc­tions, and so did the UNC sup­port­ers.

As in sev­er­al oth­er dis­tricts, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, the PNM co­or­di­na­tor for nine dis­tricts in San Fer­nan­do, said there were no neg­a­tive re­ports. He said at the Mon Re­pos Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre where PNM can­di­date for Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la Mar­cus Gird­harie vot­ed, there was a steady flow of vot­ers.