SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

shar­lene.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Chief Elec­tions Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope yes­ter­day rub­bished claims by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ can­di­date for Tu­na­puna David Nakhid, that the re­count he re­quest­ed in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy was be­ing done in an un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic man­ner.

Con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day to re­spond to claims made by Nakhid dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the El Do­ra­do Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, Nar­cis-Scope said he and his team were, in fact, not abid­ing by the guide­lines set by the EBC re­turn­ing of­fi­cer for the re­count process.

“Mr Nakhid and his team have been per­sis­tent­ly late, as I un­der­stand, in at­tend­ing the re­count in Tu­na­puna. The re­count was card­ed to start on Wednes­day morn­ing at 8.30, they did not ar­rive un­til 11, and hav­ing ar­rived at 11 and there­fore de­lay­ing the process by sev­er­al hours, they then wished to leave by 6 pm when the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer would have in­di­cat­ed he was will­ing to con­tin­ue the process and they left any­way,” Nar­cis-Scope said.

She said the rules that gov­ern the re­count process state that the com­mence­ment and ter­mi­na­tion of the dai­ly re­counts are set by the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer on­ly, adding since Nakhid is the can­di­date who re­quest­ed the re­count, he should com­ply with the terms of the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer. She said Nakhid has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be present or have an agent present on his be­half if he can­not be at the venue for the process.

Nar­cis-Scope ref­er­enced the No­tice of Elec­tion pub­lished by the EBC on Ju­ly 6, which states that any re­count re­quest­ed would be­gin at 3 pm on Au­gust 11 and con­tin­ue, with the dates and times set by the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer.

“I am say­ing that to un­der­line the fact that the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer sets the con­di­tions un­der which the re­count shall be tak­ing place. By that, I mean the length, the time and the du­ra­tion and that can­di­dates and their agents are to com­ply with what has been set by that rel­e­vant re­turn­ing of­fi­cer.”

Dur­ing the press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, Nakhid al­leged that the re­count process was un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic be­cause the re­count had con­tin­ued on Wednes­day when he and his rep­re­sen­ta­tives had al­ready left for the day.

“How can we have a process from 6 pm to 11 pm yes­ter­day (Wednes­day), where votes were re­count­ed and we were not present? How is that pos­si­ble? We have no doc­u­men­ta­tion from the EBC about what the sched­ule is, we tried to com­ply, we told them what the sched­ule was and every time it changes, PNM le­gal (team) what­ev­er they say seems to hold weight with the re­turn­ing of­fi­cer,” Nakhid said.

Asked how far along in the re­count process they were, Nakhid re­spond­ed, “We are go­ing as quick­ly as we can but this is a process you can­not go for speed, this is not a NASCAR race, this is a re­count of an elec­tion so some­one can­not just come, say based on one side, that they can re­count four box­es from 6 to 11 last night with­out the UNC be­ing present, that is just sim­ply ridicu­lous, in any coun­try, in any state.”

Asked if he ex­pect­ed the re­count to cut the 2,000 vote dif­fer­ence be­tween him­self and the PNM can­di­date Es­mond Forde, Nakhid said, “Be­fore we talk about over­turn­ing 2,000 votes, we talk about hav­ing a trans­par­ent process, then we can see what has hap­pened. But be as­sured, some­thing is not right, the be­hav­iour we have seen is not that of a democ­ra­cy.”

Forde se­cured 9,460 votes to Nakhid’s 7,534 ac­cord­ing to the pre­lim­i­nary re­sults is­sued by the EBC.

The UNC has al­so or­dered re­counts in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, St Joseph, San Fer­nan­do West and To­co/San­gre Grande.