July 31st, 2017 -- So far, I have shared much information on electoral matters, but I have not touched much on the requirements of persons who wish to offer themselves as candidates.
According to the Constitution, a candidate must be 21 years or older. That person must be a citizen and he or one of his parents must have been born here. He must also be domiciled here at the time of his nomination for election.
He should also not be under allegiance to a foreign power or state. He cannot be a minister of religion, nor an undischarged bankrupt, having been adjudged or otherwise declared bankrupt under any law.
Nor can he be a candidate if he is a person certified to be insane or otherwise adjudged to be of unsound mind under any law. If he is under a death sentence imposed by a court in any part of the Commonwealth, or is serving a term of imprisonment exceeding 12 months imposed on him by a court or a competent authority, or is under a sentence of imprisonment, he cannot offer himself as a candidate. (Read sections 27 and 28 of our Constitution).
Other than the above, he is also banned from being a candidate for a period of 5 years in some cases, and 7 years in others, if convicted of an electoral offence.
If the person passes all of the above, he will require to be nominated, for a fee of $150.00, by two persons duly registered in the Constituency which he plans to contest. There is no requirement for him to be registered in the contested constituency. Despite all this, he may withdraw his candidacy as late as 3 days before polling day. He does not have to be affiliated with a political party i.e. he may be an independent candidate.
Then there are certain behaviours associated with being a good candidate on the day of elections; chief of which is he shall not openly campaign on polling day, especially within 100 yards of the polling station. He must appoint, by writing to the Supervisor of Elections, an agent to watch the actual voting. But he, the candidate, and the Agent cannot together be in the polling area for more than 5 consecutive minutes. And, of course, display of party paraphernalia is banned.
He may also appoint an agent to participate in the count.
I have used the term “he” during this article, but women candidates are subject to the same conditions. In fact, according to UN conventions that we have signed on to, female candidates are encouraged and welcomed, to the extent that a minimum quota of 30% female candidates was set under the CEDAW Convention that we signed in 1985. However, only in the 1979 Nevis Council elections has this ever been achieved, when 33% (6 of 18) of all candidates were female! Only 1 of these women was successful.
Could it be that women will help us to achieve, more easily than men, the one person, one vote in the right place with fairness to all ideal?
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