Amendment of NAEA - Electoral Reform
~~Adz:Left~~Basseterre, St. Kitts; October 23, 2007: The People’s Action Movement wishes to express disgust at the proposed amendments to the National Assembly Elections Act which will be tabled in Parliament tomorrow, Wednesday 24th October, 2007. It is scandalous that after one year of consultations with the people, extensive overseas travel, the supposed involvement of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the expert legal draughtsman in Barbados all that has been produced is a change to section 42, section 71 and a few new definitions.
The substantive result is that the main problems identified by the people as requiring change including but not limited to (i) the inflated voters list, (ii) the lax registration process, (iii) the need for a specific Voters ID Card with fingerprint and (iv) a re – registration process have been completely ignored.
It is outrageous that none of the supposed problems with the Act of 1983 that this Administration has continually criticized have been addressed and the issues of domicile and residence have not been resolved.
The new amendment drastically expands the number of persons eligible to be registered as voters including persons who have never lived in St. Kitts and whose parents have never lived in St. Kitts. It requires only the most tenuous link with a constituency to be registered there and allows for persons to choose where they wish to register.
The worst travesty of this new law is that the National ID Card has been rendered useless before it has even been issued. Persons will be allowed to cast a ballot without a National ID card if they have any government issued picture ID and the oath of identity that persons had to take if challenged has been removed.
It is clear that this Government has run roughshod over the wishes of the people given through consultations and the stakeholders and intends to cause chaos in this Federation.
