Category: fraud

UNC nothing yet

January 28, 2010 by Edmund Gall

UNC MP Vasant Bharath and ex-Chairman of the Membership Committee Kelvin Ramnath hosted a news conference yesterday to give further details on the alleged discovery of boxes containing "thousands" of undistributed UNC membership cards at Rienzi Complex, home of the UNC's administrative offices.  It was carried live by media houses on the Internet and reported in today's papers, such as Anna Ramdass's article in the Trinidad Express.

I looked at the news conference via C News' live Internet broadcast Internet yesterday and was left a bit confused. The feed continued for a few seconds after the end of the news conference. It was during this time, I heard Mr Ramnath say that his own card may have been in the pile, and Mr Bharath replied that he found his in the pile.  Unless I misheard, if the non-issuance of the cards leads to persons being omitted from the voters list, how come these two gentlemen were able to vote?  Mr Ramnath admitted that the preliminary membership list was circulated to all candidates and constituency offices and apart from a handful of requests from Mr Jack Warner, no requests for changes were made.

They complained about poor office administration, lack of support for Mr Ramnath and said their intention was not to question the election results but rather to inform the public of a suspicious discovery in the offices by staff preparing for the handover to the new executive. At the end of it, I quite frankly was left with the feeling that here was a bunch of poor-me-ones trying to deflect public attention from the winds of change by claiming some fraud occurred.  Their hinting of the possibility of some member of the public seeking court-room clarification on this discovery was puzzling: clarification of what? {Read more}