PNM election officer dismisses claims of irregularities in Sando East polls

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) elec­tions of­fi­cer In­dar Paras­ram has de­nied al­le­ga­tions of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the on­go­ing San Fer­nan­do East par­ty group (PG) elec­tions, in­sist­ing that the process has been pro­ceed­ing smooth­ly, with on­ly one mi­nor is­sue re­port­ed.

His com­ments come af­ter sev­er­al long­time San Fer­nan­do East mem­bers re­cent­ly ex­pressed con­cern over what they de­scribed as ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in the in­ter­nal elec­tions, in­clud­ing claims that "im­port­ed" mem­bers were be­ing brought in­to the con­stituen­cy to vote.

The San Fer­nan­do East PG elec­tions, which be­gan last Sun­day, are sched­uled to run un­til Sep­tem­ber 25. As of ear­li­er this week, near­ly half of the con­stituen­cy's 30 par­ty groups had com­plet­ed vot­ing.

The pre­vi­ous San Fer­nan­do East ex­ec­u­tive, led by for­mer chair­man Pa­tri­cia Alex­is, re­signed three weeks ago fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the par­ty lead­er­ship. The res­ig­na­tions came amid pub­lic ten­sions in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and Alex­is, with the par­ty lead­er­ship al­so pub­licly re­buk­ing Man­ning.

A team head­ed by Parsram was ap­point­ed by the PNM lead­er­ship to over­see the con­stituen­cy's PG elec­tions.

On Tues­day, some PNM mem­bers in San Fer­nan­do East al­leged that vot­ers were be­ing "im­port­ed by some for­mer of­fi­cials" to par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tions. They al­so claimed that dis­missed Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) work­ers were al­leged­ly be­ing paid to vote, de­spite not be­ing le­git­i­mate mem­bers, and were be­ing promised jobs in re­turn.

Oth­er mem­bers raised con­cerns about the can­cel­la­tion of a Pleas­antville PG elec­tion, claim­ing that 32 mem­bers were de­nied en­try to cast their bal­lots.

How­ev­er, Paras­ram re­ject­ed the al­le­ga­tions.

"There are no prob­lems. The San Fer­nan­do East PG elec­tions are go­ing smooth­ly," he said.

"There was on­ly one lit­tle is­sue at one elec­tion in­volv­ing mem­bers. That elec­tion was can­celled and will be held again."

He added that all PG elec­tions in the con­stituen­cy should be com­plet­ed by next Wednes­day.

The PG elec­tions and vot­ing by oth­er San Fer­nan­do East units are be­ing held ahead of the Oc­to­ber 15 elec­tion of a new con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive.