Tesheira sues over PNM internal election changes

He claimed that af­ter his clients wrote to the com­mit­tee last month to raise their con­cerns with the elec­toral process, Roberts sought to “side­step” re­spond­ing to com­plaints over the elec­tion dates

Derek Achong

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal leader can­di­date Karen Nunez-Tesheira and two mem­bers of her slate for the par­ty’s up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions have filed a law­suit over changes in the elec­toral process.

In their breach of con­tract law­suit, filed this week­end, Nunez-Tesheira, Dr Ken­neth Butch­er, who is vy­ing for the post of Chair­man, and Bish­op Vic­tor Phillip, who is con­test­ing the post of elec­tion of­fi­cer, are claim­ing that the par­ty’s cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive breached the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion by de­cid­ing that the elec­tion should be con­test­ed on three sep­a­rate days over a nine-day pe­ri­od (No­vem­ber 26, 27, and De­cem­ber 4) in­stead of on one day.

“The Claimants con­tend that such a de­ci­sion is equiv­a­lent to an amend­ment of the Con­sti­tu­tion which au­thor­i­ty the Cen­tral Ex­ec­u­tive does not pos­sess and which there­fore ren­ders its ac­tion un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, null and void, and of no ef­fect,” their at­tor­ney Pe­ter Tay­lor said in their court fil­ings.

Tay­lor sug­gest­ed that such a change could not be done by the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive or even the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil as it re­quired ap­proval dur­ing the par­ty’s an­nu­al con­ven­tion.

“The de­ci­sion to change the elec­tion from the time-ho­n­oured ‘elec­tion day’ to span a nine-day pe­ri­od is a fraught ex­er­cise more so since no jus­ti­fi­able rea­sons have been prof­fered to the mem­ber­ship for such a change which is with­out prece­dent any­where in the Com­mon­wealth or in ju­ris­dic­tions through­out the world that ob­serve and ad­here to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­ven­tions and prac­tices and to the ob­ser­vance of the rule of law,” Tay­lor said.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, Tay­lor al­so point­ed out that when the de­ci­sion on the elec­tion dates was an­nounced, PNM Chair­man Colm Im­bert al­so an­nounced dead­lines for the pub­li­ca­tion of the fi­nal mem­ber­ship list.

How­ev­er, Tay­lor claimed that the list was not pub­lished as promised and polling cards, sim­i­lar to those used in na­tion­al elec­tions, have not been is­sued.

He al­so point­ed out that the pre­lim­i­nary list pub­lished in Au­gust did not con­tain the tele­phone num­bers and email ad­dress of mem­bers need­ed for ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

“The Claimants con­tend that the Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee’s con­duct to ex­clude the Claimants from, or de­ny the Claimants ac­cess to the con­tact in­for­ma­tion of the el­i­gi­ble elec­torate while in­cum­bent con­tes­tants or op­po­nents en­joy such vi­tal in­for­ma­tion for can­vass­ing, is un­fair, ir­ra­tional, and with­out good faith, as it seek to un­der­mine the le­git­i­mate con­trac­tu­al in­ter­ests of the Claimants in bad faith,” he said.

Tay­lor al­so sought to chal­lenge the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive’s au­thor­i­ty to ap­point the com­mit­tee chaired by An­tho­ny Roberts to over­see the elec­tion.

“The Claimants chal­lenge the gen­uine­ness of the in­de­pen­dence of the Elec­tions Su­per­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee and con­tend that in the cir­cum­stances, it is on­ly ra­tio­nal and in good faith that all per­sons who over­see and/or have con­duct of the Elec­toral process to wit, the Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer and all pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers must be per­sons who are not mem­bers of the de­fen­dant,” Tay­lor said.

He claimed that af­ter his clients wrote to the com­mit­tee last month to raise their con­cerns with the elec­toral process, Roberts sought to “side­step” re­spond­ing to com­plaints over the elec­tion dates.

Tay­lor al­so chal­lenged Roberts‘ state­ments over how bal­lot box­es would be se­cured be­fore the last day of vot­ing and the even­tu­al fi­nal count.

He claimed that Roberts‘ ad­mis­sion that the box­es would be kept at a se­cret lo­ca­tion and would be es­cort­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers was con­cern­ing as such a move lacked trans­paren­cy.

Through the law­suit, Tesheira and her col­leagues are seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the han­dling of the elec­tion.

They are seek­ing or­ders al­low­ing their rep­re­sen­ta­tives to be present when the bal­lot box­es are be­ing trans­port­ed and for the votes to be count­ed im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the close of vot­ing.

They are al­so seek­ing an or­der post­pon­ing the elec­tion for 21 days in the event that they are suc­cess­ful in their ur­gent sub­stan­tive case and re­ceive the de­c­la­ra­tions and or­ders.

The case has been as­signed to Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad. Cur­rent PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, who was list­ed as de­fen­dant to the law­suit, is yet to of­fi­cial­ly re­spond.