Tuesday, December 29 2009

An estimated 10,000 new persons from across the 41 constituencies have applied for membership in the Opposition UNC, membership committee chairman Kelvin Ramnath disclosed yesterday.

He said the processing of the preliminary list was 90 percent complete and the document would be ready for circulation next week.

Reiterating the party was using guidelines issued by the Elections and Boundaries Commission, Ramnath said the list was being categorised alphabetically and by constituency.

“So by the middle of the week we should have a preliminary list ready for circulation throughout all the constituencies and this would allow for any objections and inclusions or omissions to be addressed. We now have more financial members than any other political party,” he said.

And asked whether the new applicants were from a single constituency, Ramnath said the applications had been evenly spread throughout the country.

“We also made allowances for those persons who, at the eleventh hour, came to be registered so we did not turn away anyone.”

The deadline for circulation of the preliminary list is January 2 and this would be followed by a period of objections and corrections from January 3 to 6.

He said the list would then be forwarded to the membership committee on January 7 for a review after which the finalised list would be published on January 11. The UNC elections is scheduled for January 24.