Act early; avoid the election controversies!

Towards the end of last month in Parliament, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves threw out what seemed to be a bait- or perhaps a red herring to his political opponents by announcing that he would initiate the process for the holding of general elections in 2025. Maybe he wanted to judge the responses and reflexes of potential fishers, but surely anyone familiar with our constitutional arrangements must know that the tenure of our Parliament ends in November, 2025, but there is a 90-day provision which can legally take us into 2026 before elections are held.

True to form, the Opposition was out of the blocks,reassuring the electorate of its capacity not just to replace the ULP administration, but to do better. As happens under the loose”democratic” arrangements for elections, and even before that statement from the PM, there once again came statements from emerging entities declaring their intentions to contest the elections, including one asking persons to apply to represent this political fledgeling.

The serious reaction came from the Supervisor of elections, assuring the electorate that the Electoral Division will be well prepared to undertake its responsibilities, come ’25 or’26. In fact, she made it clear that preparations for fresh elections begin shortly after one election is contested. We will recall that we have had a number of post-election controversies which, for one reason or another, turned out to be little more than storms in teacups. It is therefore reassuring to hear that the Division is coming out of its blocks early. We can do without more post-election controversies and certainly without the vicious harassment of the Supervisor of Elections that a previous holder of the post had to endure.

However, we need to go further than that and be even more prepared. CARICOM countries have been fortunate to receive a number of recommendations including via the Organisation of American States about possible proposals to strengthen our electoral systems. By and large these have been ignored, and we seem happy to wait until elections are on our doorstep to raise all the objections and stir controversies.

There is a pattern that right on the eve of elections, a slew of issues and objections are raised about the registration of voters and the conduct of elections.

These often are quickly blown out of proportion and lead to heated confrontations. The local Christian Council heads a Monitoring Committee involving the bona fide political parties and serious civil society and citizens’ organisations. We take the opportunity to urge the Council to initiate deliberations on the relevant issues and to seek common ground so as to avoid the last minute and explosive controversies. We also encourage the political parties to scrupulously adhere to the standards of conduct to which they agree prior to the polls.

It is a pity that neither Government nor Opposition has taken critical matters like election spending seriously enough so as to initiate discussions both at this level and in Parliament, for we can almost be sure that serious allegations about election financing will be made during the campaigns. Can’t we try at least to have civil discussions with an aim towards arriving at some sort of agreement on election spending before the heat of battle, thus ensuring there is a measure of transparency in this element of the party election machinery?

We urge all those involved to at least make attempts at this still early stage and so avoid needless confrontation.