(Trinidad Express) Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s star continues to shine as preliminary results of the United National Congress (UNC) internal elections last night showed the incumbent political leader trumping her opponent Vasant Bharath.
Persad-Bissessar was on a projected path to win a fourth consecutive leadership election.
She led a Star slate while Bharath headed the Lotus team.
A total of 18 UNC national executive positions were contested yesterday.
Results coming in on the UNC’s Facebook page last night showed Persad-Bissessar getting 13 votes while Bharath got one in Tobago.
In the West, it appeared that Persad-Bissessar also had a lead in the Diego Martin areas with some 237 votes to Bharath’s 29 votes.
Party officials told the Express the tabulation of results will take some time as there were 18 positions contested and polling stations in Central and South, where the UNC base is, would have larger numbers to count. However, the Express was told that Persad-Bissessar had the lead in the count last night.
Persad-Bissessar first became UNC political leader in January 2010 after defeating party founding father Basdeo Panday.
She won the leadership election again in 2015 and 2017.
This would be the third time that Bharath has unsuccessfully challenged Persad-Bissessar for the party’s leadership.
He contested in 2015 and got 1,305 votes, whilst Persad-Bissessar got 17,502 votes.
In 2017, Bharath withdrew from the UNC internal elections race, citing election irregularities.
In 2017, Persad-Bissessar won by a landslide with 20,328 votes.
Bharath said yesterday the UNC internal elections were fraught with irregularities.
UNC members throughout the country voted at some 37 polling stations.
A number of election irregularity claims were made by both the Persad-Bissessar and Bharath teams yesterday.
Frustration
Bharath expressed frustration, saying voters’ names were not on the list, including that of his father.
He also claimed that members of Persad-Bissessar’s Star team were trying to influence voters on election day.
And Star candidate for UNC vice-chairman, Khadijah Ameen, claimed members of Bharath’s Lotus team were engaging in irregular voting tactics and claimed one member was asked by police to leave the compound of a polling station after wearing a T-shirt with the Lotus symbol.
There was uncertainty with respect to the voter turnout as Bharath’s team claimed the numbers were low and Ameen said there was a record high turnout in the St Augustine area.
Speaking to the Express by phone, Bharath said a number of irregularities took place and sitting Opposition parliamentarians were asked to leave polling stations.
“Barrackpore has been in touch with me all morning because Michelle Benjamin, who is the Member of Parliament, has been sitting inside the station for the last few hours refusing to go. She has no locus standi in this election,” he said.
Bharath said a call to the election chairman was made to have her removed.
“The presiding officer has been called and told this woman is not allowed in the station and she refused to move,” he said.
