Need for election reform

tribune242.com editorial:




PLP Leader Perry Christie has called for election reform, accusing FNM operatives of conducting an unethical by-election in the Elizabeth campaign. He said it was a campaign filled with promises of jobs and offering incentives to voters in exchange for their support.

A seasoned parliamentarian of 30 years, Mr Christie condemned the by-election as "the worst" he had "ever seen it" in terms of allegations that members of the FNM were using their government clout to sway voters. He claimed that on the eve of the by-election, a PLP supporter told him that her daughter had been offered a job by an FNM member, presumably to influence her vote.

Up to Monday, said Mr Christie --the election was on Tuesday-- "government was giving people jobs with a clear intention of influencing the vote. That's not proper, ethical or fair."

At present he said too much was happening "below the radar", elections had to be more transparent. What goes on now is just "not fair," he said.

It would seem that the Opposition leader believes his party has patented election practices that are "below the radar" and that at no election should they be imitated, particularly if it means a defeat for the PLP.

This observation does not mean that we condone unfair electoral practices or that there should not be electoral reform. It is just that it seems ironic that such a complaint should come from the leader of the PLP, a party that in the past 43 years has honed unfair election practices into a fine art.

Let's go back three years to 2007.

Mr Christie, PLP leader, was then the Prime Minister. His first -- and only -- five-year term ended that year and an election was called for May 2, 2007.

Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham was then the leader of the FNM and headed the official Opposition.

During the 2007 election campaign the FNM also accused the PLP of many unfair practices.

For example, police, Defence Force officers and public administrators always vote before the general public. The day they voted in the 2007 election was government pay day. One police officer told The Tribune that before voting he checked his bank account. He discovered that an extra $150 had been added to his salary. This extra was his pension that had been suspended. He said senior officers also received a lump sum as their pension payment.

It was understood at the time that retired officers on pension, who had returned to the force could not receive both salary and pension while they continued to serve. Their pensions were, therefore, suspended during this working period. However, two weeks before they were to vote they were told that the pension suspension had been lifted. They were paid both their salaries and their pensions on the day they voted.

It was also rumoured that certain government contracts were being hurriedly signed for five-year periods to secure jobs for PLP favourites should the Christie government lose the 2007 election.

About a month before the election it was reported that hundreds of temporary workers had been added to government's payroll.

Civil servants are banned from campaigning for either side during an election, but during the 2007 election -- as in most elections before it --reports were coming into The Tribune from Eleuthera that not only were civil servants campaigning, but they were using government vehicles to do so. The FNM candidate for North Eleuthera complained to the Parliamentary Registrar General Errol Bethel that the North Eleuthera administrator, who was also the assistant returning officer for the 2007 election, was openly campaigning for the PLP candidate.

In the three weeks leading up to the 2007 election, Bahamians were talking about vote buying, intimidation, threats of loss of jobs, pensions and even government housing if they failed to vote PLP.

And where was Mr Christie in the June 19, 1987 Crooked Island by-election that he can honestly say today that the Elizabeth by-election was the worst he had ever seen in terms of allegations that members of the FNM were using their government clout to sway voters? What was the late Sir Lynden Pindling doing when he ordered his whole Cabinet to descend on that isolated constituency, backed up by a Defence Force boat circling the island as further intimidation in the late Basil Kelly's 1987 by-election?

In a four-and-a-half page type written report of that by-election, Mr Kelly said that in one small settlement the mailboat landed an estimated $2,000 to $3,000 worth of groceries. The groceries were issued before the election, $50 worth to every voter. The voters were told that if the PLP got 30 votes or more out of that settlement, they would not have to pay the grocery bill.

Mr Kelly said that this particular settlement was the most isolated in the whole district. They were also told that if the PLP did not get their 30 votes the people's mail boat service would be taken away. The settlement was expected to go 50-50 -- half FNM, half PLP. In the end the district voted 16 FNM, 30 PLP.

If Mr Christie in fact believes that Elizabeth was the worst he has seen then maybe we should continue this discussion in this column tomorrow with quotes from Mr Kelly's report. Surely we can't let our Opposition leader remain uninformed.

February 22, 2010

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