BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, February 16th 2010 (PAM Public Relations Office) - In just a few days the nation will again be embroiled in constitutional litigation in relation to a corrupt and unjust electoral process. As the long saga of the boundaries case showed last year corruption is a feature not a bug of the electoral system because it has been engineered not to protect the precious constitutional right to a democracy undergirded by free and fair elections but to protect the wealth, power and privilege of a tiny minority who have grown mighty from the plunder of our national Treasury.
What happened on January 25th was not an accident. It was not the result of random circumstance. The hundreds of infractions of the law – crimes – that occurred were orchestrated and deliberate in order to manufacture a desired result. Even now despite the suddenly sanctimonious conscience of the Supervisor of Elections people are still registering illegally. His belated warning that people should now, after the damage has already been done, register where they live; cannot be taken seriously when lawlessness has prevailed up to this point. In my constituency we are already seeing people from Saddlers on our list.
The people of St. Kitts and Nevis voted for a change to the catastrophic economic and social policies that have been the source of so much affliction and misery over fifteen long years. The constituency of the Labour Party began to leave the country even before the final count late Tuesday morning and by now all 3000 of them have returned home to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
We, the longsuffering residents of these blighted islands are waiting fearfully to hear the unprecedented 2 months late National Budget. We are forlorn with grief at already having to bury four young men. We are angry at the cruel circus that has been foisted upon us as a government. We worry how the borrowed Libyan money will embolden Prime Minister Douglas to pretend that he has a mandate and engage in more reckless spending that will plunge us into further debt.
Fortunately Prime Minister Douglas has not been able to eviscerate the rule of law in this Federation like he has undermined and attacked the other civic institutions in our Federation. In fact he has been repeatedly humbled before the judicial bench in his attempts to destroy our democracy. Once again the Court will be called upon to vindicate the PAM in demonstrating that democracy is not just a word but has real meaning for us as citizens.
