ROSEAU, Dominica, November 11, A coalition of opposition political parties and civil society organizations, Friday said they planned to stage peaceful protests from next Thursday to stop the December 6 snap general election, insisting that no elections should be held in Dominica without electoral reform.
Former agriculture minister Athie Martin, who has been staging weekly protests here, told a news conference of the Electoral Reform Coalition (ERC) that while there were many options available to protestors, “I am suggesting if you are going to start this campaign, which we have agreed to start, it must be a campaign to the finish.
“We must not stop until the desired outcome is obtained. The desired option comes in stages. If we can stop the nomination process, that is stage one; if we can stop the actual election, that is stage two.
“What is stage three? I leave it to your imagination that all I have to stay to that,” he told reporters.
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who last Sunday shocked the nation by announcing the snap poll two years ahead of the constitutional deadline, has already warned that his ruling Dominica Labour Party (DLP) government will not tolerate any violence in the campaign.
“…that nonsense they did the last election, blocking streets and burning streets, let me say to them that we will not sit down and take that nonsense again in Dominica.
“That nonsense will not happen in our country. This lawless behavior, the government will not accept it these people. You fight elections with policies, programs, and ideas, not blocking streets and burning streets. It is not going to happen again, and if it happens, we will deal with it according to the laws of the Commonwealth of Dominica,” Skerrit said.
The Concerned Citizens Movement of Dominica (CCM) said it was joining the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP) and the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), in urging citizens to boycott the elections until Sir Dennis Byron, the former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) completes his assignment as the sole commissioner advancing the efforts towards electoral reform.
Sir Byron had proposed presenting the first phase of his report by the end of November, with the Parliament tabling the Register of Elector’s legislation in December and the plan to enact it in January 2023.
Sir Dennis had written to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, as well as the Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, indicating that he was “working towards expediting the presentation of my Recommendations for the improvement of the Electoral Process in the Commonwealth of Dominica.”
In the November 6 letter, which was also sent to the leader of the United Workers Party (UWP) and copied to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Duncan Stowe, the prominent international jurist with over 50 years of judicial and related experience, also explained that he would be presenting the report in two phases.
“Phase I will deal with the Registration of Electors and Phase II with the Election Process,” Sir Denis wrote in the letter, a copy of which had been obtained by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), adding, “I am in the final stage of the Phase I report.” regarding electoral reform here.
In a statement read out at the news conference, the CCM said that it was taking the opportunity to “re-affirm our unity with the opposition political parties and civil society organizations who are opposed to the holding of general elections on December 6, 2022, based on a fraudulent and bloated voters list in the absence of electoral reform.
‘We, the members of the CCM, fully support and endorse the call for postponing the holding of general elections on December 6, 2022, in the absence of electoral reform,” the statement said, calling on President Charles savarin to “reconsider” his decision to issue the writ for the poll.
The UWP had demanded electoral reform ahead of the last general election, but the Skerrit administration said it had been stymied by Opposition legislators who refused to debate the necessary legislation needed to advance the electoral reform process.
The UWP tried to get the 2019 general elections postponed to February the following year on the grounds that there was a need for electoral reform, more specifically, the issuance of picture identification cards and a cleansing of the voters’ list.
UWP Interim Leader, Francisca Joseph, told the news conference that the party, which won three of the 21 seats in the 2019 general election, “had before been asking for basic reform….
“…We had been asking to clean the voter’s list because it is bloated,” she said, adding that every country in the world conducts elections with a clean list.
“Every country in the world has a voter ID card. This is not too much to ask the government to produce so the people can have a free and fair election,” she said, noting that the party is not saying that Skerrit should not call the polls, “but it is immoral” to do so under the prevailing situation.
“The Electoral Commission is not prepared for the election; the election officers were caught with their pants down because they were not ready, and they are still not ready for this election. The Chief Elections Officer was caught with his pants down because he was not ready, and he is still not ready,” Joseph said, urging supporters “to turn out in massive numbers to ensure that Roosevelt Skerrit gets the message that enough is enough, Dominica has taken enough, and we are now in 2022, and we have to stand and fight this battle”.
But as he addressed a political meeting, Skerrit said he was extending an olive branch to the opposition to join his DLP in ensuring the socio-economic development of the country.
“So let us not get confused by them. We have work to do. We caught them with their pants and underwear down. And you know it was not only down, but it was also completely off, and they cannot recover from this. The UWP tonight is as naked as it was born. Let us remain focused on Dominica and what we need to do for our country,” he told supporters.
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