THE OPPOSITION Antigua Labour Party (ALP) has officially requested the Caribbean Community Secretariat to mount an observer mission for the country’s forthcoming general election.

The poll is due not later than March this year for a 17-member parliament, but it is widely expected to be held much earlier, as campaigning has already intensified following a brief lull for the Christmas holidays.

In his letter to Secretary General Edwin Carrington, the ALP’s political leader and former Prime Minister, Lester Bird, has outlined his party’s fears over “electoral malpractices and a campaign of intimidation” that could jeopardise the conduct of a free and fair election. 

He has specifically pointed to claims of harassment of media and business people that CARICOM could seek to verify.

The convention for monitoring of national elections by CARICOM, the Commonwealth, or any other overseas observer mission, is that the government of the country must agree to such an exercise.  

Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, leader of the governing United Progressive Party (UPP), was unavailable yesterday for a response to the ALP’s claims of “political mischief afoot” to  determine the outcome of the election in favour of the ruling party, and whether he would consent to monitoring by a CARICOM team of observers.

There were speculations over the weekend that Prime Minister Spencer could announce the election date at a scheduled mass rally of his UPP tonight in St. John’s.

The ALP’s Bird, a former two consecutive-term Prime Minister, said in his letter to Carrington that he and his Party were aware that CARICOM “will require the  UPP to accede to this request for an Observer Mission,” and the likelihood of a rejection by the government.

However, stressed Bird, “we believe that CARICOM’s presence in Antigua and Barbuda is essential, if democracy and freedom are to be preserved. We urge you to send a mission.”

At the last general election of March 2004, Spencer’s UPP captured the government for the first time by winning 12 of the 17 constituencies to the ALP’s four, and with sister island Barbuda retaining its one parliamentary seat through the Barbuda People’s Movement.

The results were a virtual reversal of that of the 1999 general election when the incumbent ALP returned to power with a 12-5 majority. In terms of popular votes secured at the 2004 election, the UPP received approximately 53 per cent of the total 39,627 valid votes to the ALP’s 41.07 per cent.