BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS (JUNE 16TH 2004) - St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. the Hon Denzil L. Douglas has assured the people of the twin-island Federation that his St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party continues to discuss the issue of electoral reform.
Prime Minister Douglas in an interview with Orrin Gordon of the BBC Caribbean Desk Wednesday afternoon said he held talks Tuesday afternoon with a delegation from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) comprising of members from the United Kingdom Parliament “on the prospects for reforming our electoral laws, the difficulties that we have had in pursuing a policy of constitutional reform.”
“Reform is something that is always on the agenda for the (Labour) Government of St. Kitts and Nevis on behalf of the people,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
Responding to the opposition remarks that he is reluctant to institute electoral reform, Prime Minister Douglas said: “The opposition cannot speak for me. I speak for myself and I say that there is no reluctance on my part for reform. We have always been speaking about reform, but some people seem to be mistaken that a Voter ID card is in fact the same as electoral reform and I say no. Electoral reform is much wider than that. It involves an overhauling of the electoral laws. It means looking at the size of constituencies.”
“One constituency in St. Kitts (Central Basseterre) is larger than all of the three constituencies on the island of Nevis. Here in St. Kitts, we also have some very constituencies. The Constituency of Sandy Point is extremely small. There is another one in Old Road, Constituency # 4, and so electoral reform will involve the review of the electoral boundaries and that is why I say that the People’s Action Movement does not like to hear that but they are just simply talking of voter id. Voter Id is not electoral reform,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
He told Orrin Gordon that he could not guarantee that electoral reform could be implemented before the next general election constitutionally due by March 2005.
“I have only about nine more months before these elections are called. I would not want to tamper with the system at this stage and then someone accuses me of tampering with the system in order to secure a victory at the polls. I will not get into that,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
He said the people of St. Kitts and Nevis have confidence in the present electoral system. “It is the system (introduced by the then People’s Action Movement (PAM) Government) which we have been using since 1983 when we became independent and since then, we have had no less than five elections. Four of those elections were conducted by that system under the People’s Action Movement (PAM). I only have one election and that is the election of 2000, that was conducted on the very same system that the People’s Action Movement is now condemning and saying it has no confidence in,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
