DOMINICA-POLITICS-PM holds “constructive” talks on electoral reform

ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he held “constructive” discussions last week with Sir Dennis Byron, the former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), who has been appointed as the sole commissioner advancing the efforts towards electoral reform in Dominica.

“It was a very constructive engagement where we reviewed some of his recommendations. The recommendations we can easily with the. I have expressed to him, reminded him of the urgency of getting this thing out of the way,” Skerrit told a news conference.

Late last year, Sir Dennis had proposed presenting the first phase of his report by the end of November with the Parliament tabling the Register of Elector’s legislation and the plan to enact it in January this year.

Sir Dennis had written to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, as well as the then Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, 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.”

The UWP had demanded electoral reform ahead of the December general election, and its new leader, Dr. Thompson Fontaine, told party supporters that they should be prepared to take to the streets “in the not too distant future” to demand that electoral reform takes place in Dominica.

The UWP, along with the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), boycotted the December 6 poll that Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit called two years ahead of the constitutional deadline in support of their demands that electoral reform should have taken place before any fresh general election.

Skerrit told reporters, “ideally, the government would like to go to Parliament before the next session of Parliament…before June 30” and that the government’s position had been outlined to Sir Dennis.

“We indicated this, and he understands that too. He told me he believes we can go to Parliament this year in April to pass the necessary legislation. So we look forward to that report.

“Our hope and prayer, and from myself, is that all those who have been saying that they want electoral reform can be no chatter, and let’s move ahead and sign off on the recommendations and go to Parliament.

“There will be consultations obviously on the report. But I am hoping that the consultations can be truncated because everybody has pontificated on this for so long that it is now a matter of sending it to the jury, case closed, sending it to the Parliament to have the legislation enacted and give the Electoral Commission the authority to go ahead and do what they have to do,” Skerrit said.

He reiterated that his administration is “very committed “to the electoral reform process “and we look forward to the report from Sir Dennis Byron.

“It was a very constructive meeting that was held between myself and Sir Dennis Byron, and I want to thank him publicly for his service as I have done on many occasions,” Sker