It’s Time that We Demand the Highest Level of Integrity from our Electoral Officials

When he came here to deliver his highly informative lecture, Mr. Danville Walker, named the integrity of electoral officials as one of the key ingredients of a free and fair electoral system. He made the common sense point that corrupt people will corrupt the best possible system. Much was said in Parliament about the situation of questionable conduct by officials in Nevis but the problem here in St. Kitts approaches crisis proportions.

In the first instance the Supervisor of Elections has proven to have very little respect for the principles of fairness or truth or equal dealing. We thought we could expect at least the minimum standards of basic decency from a man of the cloth but have been severely disappointed. 

We can all remember the vulgar attempts to intimidate voters in Constituency #4 during the last General Election when the army was brought out bearing arms into Old Road. This information was on ZIZ TV and the BBC yet the Supervisor of Elections said under oath in the Court that he was completely unaware of such activities. He also claimed to be unaware that the Prime Minister entered polling stations in Constituency #4 despite it being unlawful for him to do so when he did so in full view of everyone around. 

He has resolutely refused to abide by the dictates of the Constitution and takes his orders from Church Street completely disregarding the Electoral Commission. He has not even given the appearance of trying to be fair to all Parties in this process yet expects the public to have respect for his office. 

The same can be said about the manager of the Electoral Office. This is the same individual that has volunteered to sit on the unconstitutional Boundaries Technical Committee ostensibly to review the situation of constituency boundaries. There has of course been no enumeration exercise to determine the population of constituencies that we are aware of so whatever information has been gathered it is the closely guarded secret of the Labour Government. 

After his part in that bit of dirty dealing he has been made manager of the Electoral Office, in charge of the so – called reconfirmation process to finish the job of attempting to guarantee a win for Labour. He knows just where the weaknesses for Labour are and so where to put people so that they can vote illegally. His refusal to allow outside access to anyone beside the Labour government to the information about those who have reconfirmed simply fuels speculation about the extent of the chicanery going on.

This is simply not good enough. We as law abiding citizens deserve to be able to put confidence in our public officials. However, the rot on display is unavoidable because a fish stinks from the head and our Government is peopled by gangsters rather than statesman. We need to get rid of the rot by getting rid of Labour!