UNC registration closes; many left frustrated

The United National Congress (UNC) has ended its registration for the party's internal election on January 24, 2010 with many people complaining that they were denied an opportunity to register.

And some executive members have asked the party to extend the registration process to the end of the year to ensure that all those who want to be members of the party can register.

The deadline for registrations was Friday.

Sylvester Ramquar, Don Sylvester and Rupert Griffith told reporters Friday many people were frustrated because they had to wait for hours and at the end of the day they still had not completed the registration process.

He said it was unfair that people who came from as far as Penal and Mayaro on a Friday afternoon to join the the UNC were turned back.

Many people who went to the UNC headquarters at Rienzi Complex were surprised to find the office closed by four in the afternoon, which is earlier than normal.

One man complained that he had been collecting registration forms from people and rushed to beat the deadline only to find the office closed when he arrived in Couva.

Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner confirmed that people were frustrated with the registration process.

In an interview with JYOTI from Abu Dhabi he said, "At around 4:30pm, I received several frantic calls on my mobile phone quite here in Abu Dhabi and the people were very incensed that "one Vashist Maharaj had blocked them from registering".

"I called the Chairman of the Elections Committee, Kemchan Ramdath, to lodge a formal complaint, but was not able to contact him so I left a complaint on his recording machine," Warner said.

He said it was unfair that people who came from as far as Penal and Mayaro on a Friday afternoon to join the the UNC were turned back.

For its part, the UNC officials denied that there were irregularities, noting that the process was tedious because they had to make careful checks of each application.

Warner, who is running for the post of UNC chairman, has a team of supporters checking the UNC's pre-1995 list and making calls to people listed as members to verify their membership and voting intentions.

Sources say the representatives are finding that many phone numbers and names no longer match.

However they say what they are also finding is that there is overwhelming support for Warner as chairman and Persad-Bissessar as leader.

The exercisie is continuing until at least the end of the year to make sure that when the preliminary lists are publsihed officials will be able to check the names against the data collected during the telephone exercise.