The Elections and Boundaries Commission’s (EBC) ability to bend the rules as they are known should be definitively defined by the time the UNC election writs case is over.
Also, the six UNC members challenging the EBC are on different party elections slates at present but they should come together for the case. These were the responses of political analysts to the Court of Appeal’s (COA) ruling yesterday giving the green light to the six UNC elections petitions against the EBC.
The petitions are challenging the EBC’s decision to extend voting by one hour after the polls were closed for the September 7 general election. Dr Bishnu Ragoonath, from the University of the West Indies’ Political Science Department, responding to questions from the T&T Guardian, said he did not care who won or lost at the end of the day. What was critical was that the role of the EBC and the rules governing it should be clarified in the petitions’ case, Ragoonath said.
“I did not think the general election was stolen but I would hate to think that somewhere in the future some chief elections officer would work in collusion with some political party for an election,” he added. Political analyst Mukesh Basdeo said the COA’s ruling has thrown the UNC’s ongoing internal elections campaign into a new light.
Basdeo said some of the UNC members who have filed petitions for the six constituencies, La Horquetta/Talparo, Toco/Sangre Grande, Tunapuna, St Joseph, Moruga/Tableland and San Fernando West, were on different slates contesting the UNC elections.
Vasant Bharath who has an election petition for St Joseph, is contesting the post of UNC political leader with his slate, Team Reconnect.
Jairam Seemungal, challenging the EBC for La Horquetta/Talparo, is on Dr Roodal Moonilal’s slate and Clifton de Coteau, who has a petition for Moruga/Tableland, is on the slate of UNC political leader and Opposition Leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
Basdeo said if they want to have a united challenge to the EBC they would have to work together after the UNC’s December 5 elections, whatever the results. Persad-Bissessar, as quoted in a newspaper report, has indicated she would not work with Bharath and Moonilal if she won the UNC elections because she would not be able to trust them.
Ragoonath, however, dismissed apparent differences between UNC members on the different slates as par for the course.
“I would expect after the elections the party would coalesce and the divisions would be broken down,” he noted. As for Persad-Bissessar’s statement, he said:
“That’s what they have to say. Politicians sleep with their worst enemies.” Ragoonath said the UNC election writs should not be the only issue healing wounds within the UNC but also the fact that local government elections were due next year.