Police: No reports of bribery or intimidation ahead of THA elections

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

To­ba­go po­lice say they have re­ceived no re­ports of bribery, in­tim­i­da­tion or vot­er ma­nip­u­la­tion ahead of Mon­day’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

ACP Earl Elie made the state­ment dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day, where po­lice out­lined their prepa­ra­tions for the polls.

The as­sur­ance fol­lowed an ad­vi­so­ry from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on Wednes­day, which warned po­lit­i­cal par­ties and sup­port­ers against elec­tion of­fences, in­clud­ing bribery, in­tim­i­da­tion, or of­fer­ing mon­ey or gifts to in­flu­ence vot­ers.

Asked di­rect­ly whether po­lice had re­ceived any such re­ports, Snr Supt Mark Joseph said none had been made.

“We have no re­ports of any such in­ci­dent or al­le­ga­tion as you have stat­ed there. But should we re­ceive a re­port, we will do what is re­quired of us. If there is any breach of the law, we will treat with that ac­cord­ing­ly.”

ACP Elie al­so con­firmed that po­lice met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all the par­ties con­test­ing the elec­tion to dis­cuss elec­tion readi­ness and pub­lic con­duct ahead of polling day. He said no is­sues were raised.

Po­lice said risk as­sess­ments were con­duct­ed as part of their elec­tion prepa­ra­tions but no ma­jor con­cerns were iden­ti­fied.

“We al­ways do risk as­sess­ments. We have agen­cies with­in the TTPS who are tasked with do­ing such as­sess­ments and we have no ma­jor con­cerns,” Elie said.

He added that the cur­rent elec­tion pe­ri­od has been calm so far.

“This elec­tion seems to be more peace­ful than the last one be­cause thus far, we have had ab­solute­ly no neg­a­tive re­ports,” he said.

Elie said To­ba­go will re­ceive ad­di­tion­al sup­port from Trinidad, in­clud­ing of­fi­cers from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch and the In­ter­a­gency Task Force, to as­sist lo­cal po­lice dur­ing the elec­tion pe­ri­od. How­ev­er, he said spe­cif­ic num­bers would not be dis­closed.

Po­lice al­so con­firmed that pa­trols have al­ready been in­creased and will be fur­ther in­ten­si­fied as po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties peak over the week­end.

Elie al­so ad­dressed pub­lic be­hav­iour as cam­paign­ing en­ters its fi­nal stretch, say­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans have been be­hav­ing them­selves. How­ev­er, he warned that emo­tions can run high in the com­ing days.

“We know that per­sons are sup­port­ing dif­fer­ent par­ties and emo­tions get the bet­ter of us. Let good sense pre­vail. We will do what we need to do to en­sure there is law and or­der on the is­land. As we get clos­er to Mon­day, please con­tin­ue with your good be­hav­iour,” he said.

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that elec­tion-re­lat­ed of­fences can be re­port­ed at any po­lice sta­tion, to an of­fi­cer, on­line, or anony­mous­ly.

“We al­so have an anony­mous phone line, 631-HELP. With that num­ber no one knows who you are,” Elie said, ask­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to re­main calm and law-abid­ing as To­ba­go heads in­to the fi­nal lap of the elec­tion sea­son.