300 UNC members stage sit-in after denied right to vote

About 300 people who say they are members of the United National Congress and have been denied their right to vote are staging a sit-in at the polling station at the Exchange Presbyterian School in the Couva South constituency.

When they went to vote on Sunday they discovered that their names were not on the voters list. Some of them said their names were arbitrarily removed.

Earlier in the day, UNC MP Nizam Baksh faced then same predicament. He has been an MP since 2000 and is a member of the UNC elections committee. Two days ago his name was on the list but he told JYOTI when he went to vote, he discovered that his name was deleted.

He said there is nothing he can do except lodge a formal complaint because the election rules are clear that a person cannot vote unless his or her name is on the list.

Read the story: UNC MP denied vote in election, name not on list

But the UNC members at Couva are not accepting that. they say they have always been members and have no other political affiliation and they will remain there until they get to register their votes.

Elections Commitee Chairman Kelvin Ramnath told the media Saturday that there are 1,400 members who also hold membership in the Congress of the People (COP) and they would not be allowed to vote.

He said he got the information from an official list from the COP but did not say how he acquired the list. The COP had refused a request from the UNC to provide a list of its membership, citing privacy issues.