Slow start to voting

Some 25,000 eligible financial members of the Opposition party were expected to cast ballots for a new national executive committee contested by the Patriot’s slate, which is led by chairman designate, Basdeo Panday, and the Progressives slate which has been endorsed by the party’s new political leader, Winston Dookeran.

Voting, which began promptly at 8 am, was described by Fyzabad MP, Chandresh Sharma, who cast his ballot at the KPA primary school, Siparia Old Road, Siparia, as having settled down "very nicely" after several persons were debarred from voting, while several others had to await approval from the party’s elections committee after their names were not found on the polling station list.

"We have had a number of people come in who are not financial members, they are party members, but not financial members, so of course they cannot vote," he said yesterday

Sharma added, "The constituency has about 2,600 financial members, and all of the names are not on the list available at the polling station, which again is human, but the central command at Rienzi managed by elections management committee, headed by Ganesh Ramdial, was monitoring the situation."

Meanwhile, Oropouche MP, Dr Roodal Moonilal, who contested one of the three positions of deputy political leader, also acknowledged the problem saying the omission of several names was as the result of a recent registration process which had been performed by the party. "The party went through a process of registration and invariably throughout the country, a lot of the names that should have been on the list were not on the list, but there were people who were on list and voting properly," he said yesterday, adding the problem was being rectified by the management committee at the various polling stations.

Meanwhile, Pointe-a-Pierre MP, Gillian Lucky, who cast her ballot at the Ste Madeleine Government Primary School, said the internal elections afforded the party an opportunity to build a "bigger better stronger UNC."

"I just hope that everybody who have come out to vote has certainly put country first, and by putting country first let us hope therefore that they would not be carried away with the political rhetoric that exists in Trinidad and Tobago, but they would recognize we need a bigger, better, stronger UNC if we are to overcome the might of the PNM that certainly has all the resources at hand and is squandering the nation’s resources," she said.

Lucky added, "I am hoping that people have not gotten so carried away with elections that they forget that the much bigger picture is that we have to respond to what is clearly a superficial budget and again I want to reiterate my disappointment in the Prime Minister with the manner in which he has dealt with crime."

Senator Sadiq Baksh, who voted at Grant Memorial Presbyterian School, San Fernando at about 10 am, observed voting was proceeding "slowly but smoothly" saying voting would pick up later in the evening. Meanwhile, chairman designate, Basdeo Panday, cast his vote at the Chandernagore Presbyterian School, Central Trinidad, he said he was busy on his response to the Prime Minister Patrick Manning $34 billion dollar budget which is scheduled for today at the Parliamentary chambers.