-after sweeping allegations in Dominica and Antigua
Please use pix of PMs Skerrit and Spencer

IF EVER there was the need for a serious review of the policy that guides our 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in monitoring national elections, the conduct of the last two it observed this year in Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda underscores the necessity.

The new policy would have to take onboard the need for increasing the financial and human resources available to the Community Secretariat to do a better job in election monitoring with credibility and to determine when NOT to take up an offer to observe an election/or referendum and offer the reason in the interest of public information.

Both the elections in Antigua and Barbuda (March 12) and Dominica (December 18) that were given CARICOM’s approval for being “free and fair” have resulted in a mix of court petitions, and, in the case of Dominica, plans for a series of legal actions supported by a boycott of the country’s parliament.

As has been the pattern since it started to monitor, by invitation, national elections, often along with observer missions from the Organisation of American States (OAS), the focus of CARICOM’s reporting has primarily been on what transpired on ‘election day’.

Comparatively little attention is normally paid to controversial claims of malpractices (including compilation of the voters register; the independence of electoral commissions/offices; access to State-owned media; and misuse of overseas-based nationals who are flown in to vote for ruling parties) as surfaced in the cases of Antigua and Barbuda and, more glaringly, in Dominica.

Given, therefore, prevailing dissatisfaction with how CARICOM observes the conduct of elections, it is felt that one of the important political issues requiring consideration by Heads of Government of the Community in 2010 would be to formulate a new policy for monitoring national elections — whenever invited to do so.

The CARICOM stamp of approval, or verification of what constitutes ‘free and fair’ national elections has evolved, over the years, as a guarantee, though, as noted earlier, with little, if any, attention is paid to practices and developments prior voting day.

Latest example of this came last week following CARICOM’s monitoring, within a three-day period, of Dominica’s December 18 general election by a seven-member team of observers.

Normally very limited in terms of days spent as well as in number of observers, reports from CARICOM missions generally focus on ‘the day of election’, particularly in assessing arrangements for free and orderly voting, and fair counting of ballots in a peaceful atmosphere.

Dominica experience
The monitoring of the general election in Dominica, where the incumbent Dominica Labour Party of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit won a landslide victory to head a consecutive third-term administration in Roseau, confirmed to a pattern.

There were standard public relations activities that normally involve meetings with the political parties competing for State power; officials of the body responsible for conducting the election, as well as religious organisations. These took up a great part of the first two days of the mission’s work before voting day on December18.

The statement issued following “completion of mission Dominica” had nothing to say on controversial issues that have been very much in the public domain during the intensive election campaigning. Among them were:

* Denial of access to State media by the Skerrit government for even the main parliamentary opposition, United Workers Party (UWP), which ended up with merely three of the 21 constituencies, compared with the DLP’s 18.

(Among the very surprising UWP losers were its leader (Ron Green) and deputy leader (Claude Sandford) –who claimed to have been specifically targetted for defeat by the incumbent DLP.)

* Repeated claims of lavish expenditures by the ruling party, reportedly involving funding by foreign governments (e.g Venezuela), some of which were used to charter planes to fly in Dominican citizens, free of cost, and to facilitate votes for the DLP;

* Nor was there any comment on the decision of the opposition parties to refuse to sign a Code of Ethics prepared by the Dominica Christian Council.

The opposition parties (UWP and Dominica Freedom Party, the latter failed to win a single seat) had explained they could not sign in the face of the Council’s maintenance of its public silence over the government’s denial of access to State Media.

Prior to voting day, the former Chief Justice of the OECS Supreme Court, Bryan Alleyne, had noted in a media interview the legal implications of contravening the country’s election laws through an act of bribery, alluding to free airline tickets as likely to constitute such an offence.

A question of much interest that will keep surfacing as arrangements are being made by the political opposition to seek court rulings on allegations of vote cheating and other malpractices on election day, is exactly how many overseas-based Dominicans were flown in to vote, and what constituencies were involved.

Antigua example
Another question is how much of the ruling party’s proposed “budget outline for an approximate US$8 million” for the election was spent. No need to ask what percentage came from foreign governments, as that will also be a closely guarded secret.

Ironically, one of the countries whose government willingly participated in the seven-member CARICOM observer mission to Dominica was that of Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda.

The political controversies, including denial of access to State Media and irregularities in the conduct of the election, that surrounded Prime Minister Spencer and his incumbent United Progressive Party (UPP) at this past March 12 general election were even more severe and widespread than what Prime Minister Skerrit and his DLP administration faced.

Indeed, judicial rulings are currently being awaited on four cases, including that of Prime Minister Spencer’s own constituency, on the basis of petitions claiming irregularities.

The judge must now rule whether a by-election should be held in any or all four of the constituencies declared in favour of Spencer’s UPP, but challenged by Lester Bird’s Antigua Labour Party by way of a series of petitions.

CARICOM had given a virtual ‘clean slate’ for the conduct of Antigua and Barbuda’s March 12 election. But even the Supervisor of Elections was to personally express publicly some strong reservations in terms of adequate arrangements for its proper conduct.

Will CARICOM now consider — in the interest of the ‘democratic practices and good governance’ to which its governments claim to be committed — reviewing its current policy on how it should monitor elections, and share with the public the core features of such a new policy?

For its part, Dominica’s opposition UWP has served notice of its planned boycott of the new parliament and filing of court petitions on electoral irregularities, and is even calling for new general election.

I think it’s a waste of time to call for new election, even without a court verdict on petitions yet to be filed. In contrast, the opposition in Antigua anxiously awaits judicial rulings on what transpired in four of the constituencies won by Prime Minister Spencer’s incumbent UPP.