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Color-Blind Electoral Reform
ALL parties in power in St. Kitts & Nevis, from the days of our colonial masters have used and abused the electoral machinery to their own advantage. This includes old LABOUR, PAM (I remember writing about the expensive electronic billboard which PAM utilized at the corner of Church and Central streets, the first overt evidence of excessive campaign spending), and current LABOUR. Across the Narrows the same holds for NRP and CCM.
This is the way of politics, here and throughout the world. We can approach the current Electoral Reform exercise in the same mode, expecting the ruling parties to extract the maximum advantage from the process, whilst the opposition parties try to eke out small gains. Or, we can try to have meaningful reform of which our grandchildren can be proud.
In these small islands, the paramountcy of the ruling party is magnified as there is no large private sector to soak up the discontents, and our economies are so small that even the private sector giants often have to be beholden to the wishes of the ruling party/government, which contrary to popular wisdom, are not always the wishes of the people. This magnification is a large factor in the bitterness and strife which characterize governance and politics (and life!!) in small islands (the smaller the worse: never let me live on Booby Island!). Also, even in the absence of manifest ill-will, when limited resources have to be divided amongst many, non-supporters will mostly get the dregs, at best.
Furthermore, the desire to seek or retain control over limited resources and the power which derives from this, results in the negativism and demonization of the opposite sides by all parties in our politics, from ever since. This demonization is key, because if your opponents are demons, you can treat them, their supporters and by extension any non supporter of yours, like a dog and nobody would say nuttin, nor could vex.
The current Electoral Reform exercise with its possibilities for guaranteeing free and fair elections, and as importantly, mandating inclusiveness for even losers, offers an opportunity to address some of these issues, in order that we might live together more harmoniously. Additionally, two other necessary and important factors are improving Transparency and implementing other Good Governance principles.
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Committee Report, Governments White Paper and other relevant material certainly need to be widely studied, but it is important that we the citizens not restrict our examination of this important issue to how it is defined by the various parties. Lawyer Emile Ferdinand, in a masterful presentation to the UWI Alumni Association (UWIAA), examined many of the key issues in this matter. Following is my laymans view on some of the issues I feel important.
Voter IDs & Residency: Hopefully in these issues internationally acceptable standards will be applied, allowing good sense and fairplay to prevail above partisan politics.
Campaign Finance Reform Key areas which need to be addressed are:
a. Public funding of campaigns; with limitations on spending.
b. Restrictions on advertising posters, giveaways etc&..
c. Immediate transparency and disclosure of donations, and spending. This would be easy in todays electronic age.
d. Equal access to Government and Private Media (not just governed by who can pay for the time)
Overseas Voters
All our main parties love the election charters. Surely we can come to some agreement as to what exactly are the criteria for retaining the right to vote: the lawyers and politicos amongst us, drawing upon international standards, can sift out the options (surely SOME categories of Kittitians and Nevisians abroad must be ineligible!!). The parties can then agree on some format which will (I hope!!) make those campaign charters a thing of the past.
Proportional Representation (PR)
Our First Past the Post system is unfair, and is increasingly being discarded worldwide, as it gives the winning Party total control of everything even if they just got one more seat, and allows for parties which speak for less than half of the people to win elections.
What I like about PR systems is that they:
1. Do away, to a large extent, with the constituency boundaries, and the opportunity for gerrymandering.
2. Allow for the possibility after the election dust has settled of meaningfully involving the losers (who may have won 49% of the popular vote!) in the governance of the country- by active (not token) membership on committees, etc. Working with folk makes it harder to view them as demons and treat them as dogs!!
PR is complex, and there are many varieties. In neighboring Montserrat and in the BVI different PR systems operate very successfully. Here again the political parties and legal luminaries amongst us can sift through the many options and present choices to the Public.
Ian Jacobs, St. Peters |
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