BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS Leroy Benjamin Sr. said while he is generally pleased with the conduct of the January 25 General Elections, there are certain changes to be made if the Federation were to advance politically.
Speaking with SKNVibes exclusively, Benjamin said, “Polling day went quite well in terms of the people (who) went out to vote as their conscience led them to do…I am particularly pleased that this is a new system that we had to go by. The identification card worked well”.
He however explained that the creation of more polling stations in order to shorten polling time is one of the needed improvements.
“One of the things that was quite noticeable - and I will have to take the responsibility for that - is that in some polling stations, which had one booth or two booths, and it seems as though there was a need for more…and in going forward, the polling stations will have to be multiplied. In other words, those which had large numbers would have to be updated; probably two or three or four as the case may be.
“The evidence was clear from the numbers but, traditionally, those were the same numbers that were used before; but this is certainly one of the things that will have to be taken into the new operations.”
Speaking specifically to irregularities, Benjamin told this media house that, if any, he would not be aware of because on polling day he was busy with administrative duties.
“About the irregularities, I didn’t seem to have any of that…I was confined to more administrative duties and trying to solve most of the problems that had to do with how to speed up things, but nothing came to me in as far as irregularities are concerned. And there shouldn’t be any at all. What irregularities we are going to get? I call them the old political stunt and talk. Because we had a voters’ list that came out of the confirmation process and that confirmation process begun in 2007 December and ended the 4th of October 2008.
“After that was done, that list went out in the community for people to raise objections. They did. People raised objections as to names. Cases were tried and the list went back out with people’s names who had to be removed, and since that we have been adding names every month which is the normally procedure which had been happening since 1984 or somewhere back there when we began the process of continuous registration. So, in truth and in fact, when the lists go out every 15th of each month, the lists go out to say to people, check your list. And the political parties have the responsibility to check these lists in every constituency and they have the ability to turn back and raise objections. So that has been ongoing.”
During the 2010 General Elections, the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party captured six of the eight available Seats in St. Kitts with the People’s Action Movement (PAM) taking two. Correspondence from the PAM indicates that the party is intent on challenging three of the Seats it lost.
Benjamin opined that politicians across the Caribbean “cannot take a loss” and it is high time that when a politician loses, he/she does not engage in the blame game.
“Our politicians cannot take a loss. Anytime that they lose, they have to find something or somebody to blame rather than saying let me go back to the drawing board to see what I did wrong, to see what I need to do for next time. It is always somebody to blame, something…I think politicians need to understand that this is not something a government is bequeathed to them so they are entitled to it. So, if they lose, something else happened.
“I like the step that Mr. Cedric Liburd took. After he lost, he went openly on the air and he said congratulations. I lost. I will consider whatever else I will do…”
The Elections Supervisor indicated that he has made a number of suggestions to the government about how he feels the polling process could be improved, noting that now the 2010 Elections are concluded, he would make further suggestions.
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