IN THEIR end-of-summit communique today, we should learn what decision, if any, was taken to advance the Commonwealth Secretariat’s work agenda for the creation of an “electoral management” project designed to establish a network of independent bodies committed to enhancing democratic processes for good governance.

Prior to the opening of the summit, Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma had listed electoral management among issues of significance to engage Heads of Government deliberations pertaining to democracy, good governance and the rule of law.

It has become the norm for the Commonwealth to be invited to observe, along with the Organisation of American States and the Caribbean Community, the conduct of elections in the Caribbean region where there are a dozen independent nations that are part of the 53-member Commonwealth.

However, a frequent complaint in countries where controversies over electoral malpractices accompany the conduct of national elections has been that such presence of “observers” often occurs too late and conclude more with attempts at rationalising weaknesses, to say the least, than in offering clinical verifications of fairiness or wrongdoings.

It is, nevertheless, good to know that for all the prevailing cynicism resulting from their own flawed approaches in dealing with varied examples of electoral fraud, disrespect for good governance and the rule of law in some member states, the ‘family” of 53 Commonwealth nations may now be moving, more seriously and sincerely, to promote a credible “revival” of democratic processes for good governance.

Long before Robert Mugabe, the once fierce revolutionary fighter for democratic governance and political independence, became a notorious violator of human rights to eventually even pouring his utter contempt for the “Harare Principles” that emerged from the summit he had hosted in Zimbabwe’s capital in October 1991, Commonwealth Heads of Government had come forward with a new initiative for improved governance for small states.

Small states problems
It was at their 1985 summit in The Bahamas when they accepted with approval the report of a high-level team of experts on “Vulnerability of Small States in the Global Society” .

The Consultative Group of Experts was established at the New Delhi Summit two years earlier, against the background of the tumultuous political events in Grenada when a “revolutionary” regime devoured itself, spoke to the challenges facing small states.

Among the more significant recommendations of the group of experts “welcomed” by the Commonwealth leaders to “enhance democratic and human rights procedures” in small states (including ours) was the creation of a range of independent regional mechanisms, among them an Elections Commission with supervisory authority over national elections bodies.

The specific recommdendation located among procedures to “enhance democratic and human rights procedures” urged to guard against “risks” of easy control of state mechanisms, is for small states to:

“Consider the advantages of regional mechanisms at the administrative and judicial levels. These could include the linking of some core elements of the administrative system on a regional basis so as to protect them from possible abuse at the local level.

“For example”, they suggested, establishment of “regional elections commission and regional service commissions for key judicial, administrative and/or security posts…..”

Well, from the 1985 ‘Nassau Summit’, it would be instructive to learn how the Port-of-Spain Summit’–24 years later–has addressed issues on “enhancing democratic and human rights procedures” in the context of, for instance, “electoral management” to ensure good governance.

CARICOM elections
Among CARICOM countries represented at the Port-of-Spain summit were those that are expected to have either national or local government elections in 2010.

These would be host country, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana (local government elections); St.Kitts and Nevis and St.Vincent and the Grenadines (national polls).

Currently, Dominica, whose Prime Minister, Roosvelt Skerrit, was absent from the summit, is currently involved in increasing political controversies surrounding claims of plans to rig the outcome of the forthcoming December 18 general election.

In the latest political tit-for-tit, Skerrit’s governing Dominica Labour Party (DLP) has dismissed as “bogus” a document in circulation entitled “Budget Outline for Campaign 2009/2010” showing allocations of proposed expenditure amounting to US$8.03 million–unprecedented in the country’s post-independence history in the conduct of elections.

The main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) of Ron Greene, while rejecting blame for the controversial document in circulation, is calling on the government to “explain what’s false about the budget outline” document.

+More of this controversy later, while assessing the outcome of the Commonwealth Summit in Port-of-Spain.