The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and its MPs want every­one to put last Sun­day’s elec­tions be­hind and unite to fight the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment as one.

But UNC lead­er­ship chal­lenger Dr Fuad Khan says he feels like pack­ing his po­lit­i­cal bags and run­ning far away from the al­leged lack of prin­ci­ples in the “sham elec­tions be­fore the stench from that ex­er­cise over­pow­ers me.”

The dif­fer­ent po­si­tions emerged yes­ter­day fol­low­ing the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions where Khan lost to in­cum­bent leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

Khan, who queried Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim that 13,000 peo­ple turned out in the elec­tion, be­lieves the PNM is “here to stay” due to al­leged ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the UNC’s elec­tion.

Sources said Per­sad-Bisses­sar got 11,700-plus votes and Khan “didn’t reach 1,000.”

Al­so, Ra­mona Ram­di­al and Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who con­test­ed the posts of elec­tions of­fi­cer and par­ty or­gan­is­er, didn’t get more than 500, it was claimed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­clar­ing vic­to­ry Sun­day night, said she was ad­vised 13,000 came out to vote and 97 per cent of the vote was in her Star team’s favour. She didn’t an­swer calls yes­ter­day.

The par­ty, in a con­grat­u­la­to­ry state­ment to her team, stat­ed, “Now it is time to put the in­ter­nal elec­tions be­hind, unite and work to­geth­er as one par­ty to de­feat the PNM and win the next lo­cal and gen­er­al elec­tions, when­ev­er they are held.”

Sev­er­al UNC con­stituen­cies al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar, call­ing for for­ward mo­men­tum and uni­ty.

It was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est re-elec­tion since beat­ing UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day in 2010.

Yes­ter­day, elec­tion team chair­man Ramesh Per­sad-Ma­haraj said bal­lot box­es were in­com­ing un­til 2.30 am and re­sults were still be­ing col­lat­ed. He said many pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers had dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting to the UNC’s of­fice in South to bring re­sults on Sun­day. An of­fi­cial de­c­la­ra­tion will be made Fri­day

Per­sad-Ma­haraj said vot­er turnout was “a bit low due to the weath­er” and was around 13,000.

Khan said the elec­tion was de­signed, “... Make the leader and her slate look as a con­vinc­ing win.”

He al­leged there was fraud with elec­toral lists and con­tin­ued lob­by­ing. We count­ed 8000 votes at the fi­nal but all of a sud­den it be­came 13000?! I don’t feel com­fort­able work­ing with peo­ple who are com­fort­able with such lack of prin­ci­ples of fair­ness. I’ll nev­er sup­port such peo­ple. The par­ty will on­ly be in de­scent to its demise,” Khan said.

“I haven’t made a de­ci­sion (on leav­ing UNC) but I’m very up­set at the lev­el of what can be done, with­out free fair elec­tions. It’s left a bit­ter taste in my mouth. I feel sor­ry for mem­bers sub­ject­ed to such de­ceit. It’s strange many col­leagues could sit in those po­si­tions and feel com­fort­able with the dis­gust­ing things in our par­ty,”

Khan felt the PNM is “here to stay be­cause the best minds will nev­er put up with this scamp­ish be­hav­iour. Bas­deo Pan­day was cor­rect in 2010.”

Ram­di­al, con­grat­u­lat­ing the Star slate, didn’t ac­cept the 13,000 fig­ure ei­ther.

“From my pre­lim­i­nary counts at the end, less than 10,000 would have vot­ed. Of­fi­cial re­sults haven’t yet been re­leased, which is baf­fling, as the count end­ed with all agents re­ceiv­ing their state­ments of the polls.”

Claim­ing the elec­tion had the low­est vot­er turnout ever, Ram­di­al al­leged “sig­nif­i­cant elec­tion ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties” which she de­tailed.

“All ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties were record­ed with names, venues and de­tails and will be sent to the Elec­tion Com­mit­tee chair­man for re­dress. I still be­lieve UNC is the best po­lit­i­cal ve­hi­cle to gov­ern T&T but not un­der the cur­rent lead­er­ship of Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar. I’ll con­tin­ue ad­vo­cat­ing for the best na­tion­al lead­er­ship.”

Ra­mad­hars­ingh, who lost to in­cum­bent par­ty or­gan­is­er Ravi Rati­ram, felt grat­i­fied his team “ran a clean, in­spir­ing and mo­ti­va­tion­al cam­paign.”

“With re­spect to some state­ments by my com­peti­tor that are be­ing re­viewed, we look for­ward to their re­ply to cor­re­spon­dence that will be sent,” Ra­mad­hars­ingh said yes­ter­day.

“We ap­plaud the re-elect­ed leader for her state­ments there’s a place and space for all. If these are just words, it will not help the par­ty. The tan­gi­ble man­i­fes­ta­tions of a mag­na­nim­i­ty will bol­ster con­fi­dence in UNC’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es of the par­ty and mo­ti­vate sup­port­ers.”

He said he re­mained avail­able to as­sist the po­lit­i­cal leader in any way she wished.

Re­sults ex­pect­ed—an­a­lyst

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Star team win was ex­pect­ed.

”What I’d like to see now is how UNC re­groups af­ter this elec­tion to take it for­ward to gen­er­al elec­tions,” Ra­goonath said yes­ter­day.

He said the re­sult showed that once Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­test­ed and Siparia and Oropouche came out, “It’s a fore­gone con­clu­sion she and her slate will win.”

“If it’s true that 10 per cent of the par­ty came out, then that’s the core that sup­port her and the elec­tion didn’t ex­cite the rest of the par­ty,” he said.