Ex-MP hits low turnout

Hart spoke to Newsday at a People’s National Movement (PNM) station outside the Tunapuna Government Secondary School on El Dorado Road, as he circulated in the area to encourage the party’s Election Day workers in the nation’s most populous corporation, Tunapuna/ Piarco Regional Corporation.

Several voluntary workers said that not only was the turnout lower than the 2015 general election but up to lunchtime it seemed even lower than the 2013 local government elections. Confirmation of a low turnout came from a local party official at the PNM Tunapuna Constituency Office on the Eastern Main Road (EMR) near Macoya Junction. “It is a very low turnout,” said the official. “This morning was not the usual morning ‘spike’ in turnout. The turnout is very, very slow.” On the EMR, United National Congress (UNC) supporter and former councillor, Kevan Gibbs, told Newsday, “It’s a very low turnout from what I’m seeing driving around. People are taking it as a referendum on national leadership, not on local issues.” Otherwise most volunteers staffing their parties’ stations said the day was incident-free, except for the robbery at Holder Street, off Persad Street in El Dorado, of a woman on her way to vote by three bandits in a AB wagon.

A man at the PNM station outside the Tunapuna Government Secondary School told Newsday, “Everything’s cool. We are satisfied with the flow, but it is less than the 2015 general election.” At about 3 pm, he said, the turnout was just less than half the expected final turnout. He said there had been no incidents.

At a PNM station outside Hillview College, a female volunteer said, “It is lower than the last local elections. It is low, but kind of steady and not that bad.” At the UNC station outside the El Dorado West Secondary School, a sole female volunteer said that things were going smoothly. “Yes, everybody’s coming, but they are coming slowly.

I don’t think we have a problem.” A woman at that school’s PNM station agreed. “It’s a low turnout, but that is so for every local government election.” Saying there were no incidents, she said, “Everything is nice, cool and calm.” However, around the corner at the El Dorado East Secondary School, a woman at the UNC station lamented the earlier robbery of a female elector on her way to vote. Otherwise she said of the day, “It is okay.”