International Election Observers Could be in Dominica Soon

A group of election observers could be arriving in Dominica anytime soon to monitor the December 18th, 2009 General Elections. Opposition Leader and Leader of the United Workers Party (UWP), Hon. Ron Green said that the UWP had officially written to six of the regional and international organizations requesting election monitors to oversee the general elections.

Green said the letters were sent off on Monday to CARICOM, the OECS, the OAS, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Carter Center and the European Union indicating to them the party’s concerns over the conduct of the election campaign and the December 18th 2009 polls.

Opposition parties have been calling for electoral reform for the past four years, a call that was intensified months ahead of the elections. No concessions were granted however, prompting fears that the elections will not be conducted free and fair.

Reacting to Skerrit’s election announcement last Thursday, Green accused the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) of attempting to steal the elections. “I see this as a bold and desperate attempt to steal the election. I think that our democracy is in danger and if we don’t stand up we can loose our country and I think the people of Dominica realize that but I am confident our people will not allow these thing to happen” he said.

Particular issues of concern to Green include the current media blackout on the state-owned DBS radio of all opposition parties, campaign financing and the DLP’s plan to spend millions of dollars mobilizing and transporting Dominicans resident overseas to come home to vote.

Both the UWP and the Dominica Freedom Party have publicly complained about DBS’s refusal to air their news items and campaign ads. Kairi FM, a private radio station, also seems to have taken an unofficial position to block the opposition from the airwaves. The state-owned station however has responded that its board of directors had taken a decision to suspend all broadcasting of political events, including those of the DLP. UWP party officials however point out that the station had gone ahead and broadcast a DLP rally in Mahaut even after the decision was made.

Green also insisted that the DLP’s activities targeting the disaspora to vote in the December 18th polls amount to an “illegal and criminal act”. He said the DLP had identified four facilitators and large chunks of money have been put into their hands to purchase blocks of tickets and to engage chartered flights to fly in from New York and San Juan and other places into Dominica. “This indeed is a danger, another very serious and grave danger to the democratic process in our country and to the election coming up” the UWP Leader said. He also said “this is a very crude attempt, given what happen on May 5th 2005, its almost a direct attempt to repeat what happened there.”

In light of these and other developments, Green says the party is pressing for international observers to come “to Dominica now to be provided with that information and to monitor that situation”

Not to be outdone however by the opposition, Prime Minister Skerrit told a DLP rally that he had also called for and invited election monitors to come to Dominica to observe the elections. Green however said he was not aware that that had been done.

“I would have thought that if the Prime Minister had taken a step to invite international Observers in the context of us having led and lobbied and championed electoral reform over the last four years that he would have had the courtesy of sharing that letter with the Leader of the Opposition especially since we have been calling for that over and over. That has not been done” he said.

Green noted further that if in fact this had happened it was “hardly enough…given the circumstances and what has happened in our country especially over the last number of years.”

He pointed out that the UWP was very thorough and transparent in its approached. “We are ensuring that we ourselves have written the various organizations and invited them. We have copied the letter to the Prime Minister, we have copied the President, we have copied the letter to the Electoral Commission, to all the church leaders, to all the leading NGOs in the country so that there is no lack of transparency on our part in terms of letting it be known, as we have over the last four years, as we think it is an essential part of the electoral process in Dominica and essential part of ensuring that we have a free and fair election.