The government of Dominica has finalized plans to proceed with the contentious Grandbay by-election despite staged protests from the opposition. Returning officer for the Grand Bay Constituency, John Roach, said the Electoral Commission is 95% ready to proceed with the election, and that ballot boxes are already in police custody awaiting the election day.
All officers have been trained and we are 95% ready [and] prepared for the holding of the by-election. Tuesday was the day the presiding officers were preparing the ballot boxes to make sure that all the materials and all the necessary documents are in place and ready for the by-elections which is scheduled for the 25th of November.
John Roach
Three candidates are shortlisted for the by-election which will see the winner became a member of the House of Assembly in charge of Grandbay. They are Dr. Vince Henderson, Clarington Andrew, and Julius Gabriel. Henderson is Dominica’s ambassador to the US and the OAS; Andrew is a roof specialist; and Gabriel is a bus driver.
Roach said 14 ballot boxes are prepared for 14 polling stations in Grandbay. He said there will be three polling stations at the Grandbay Youth Centre, eight polling stations at Pierre Charles Secondary School, and three voting stations at the Montine Resource Centre.
The returning officer said voting will commence at 7 a.m. and end at 5 a.m., and that election officers are putting health and safety protocols in place at the voting centres to protect voters against COVID-19. “As you know we are in the period of Covid-19 and therefore we have to make sure that the public feels safe to cast their votes,” he stated.
While the government is preparing for the by-election to proceed according to plan, members of the opposition said they will not allow the election to hold. They contend that Vince Henderson remains an active national ambassador who has not resigned his position or be recalled, and therefore ineligible to be a candidate for election.
In several letters written by UWP’s Lennox Linton and a coalition of other activists led by Atherton Martin to the Chairman of Dominica’s Electoral Commission, Duncan Stowe, the opposition maintained that they will not allow the by-election to hold except the Electoral Commission investigate and disqualify Henderson as a serving officer of the state.
“It falls to the Electoral Commission, the Constitutionally appointed authority with responsibility for the conduct of free and fair elections with integrity, to ensure that Mr. Henderson is barred from contesting the Grand Bay by-election in which he is not qualified to participate by operation of law,” Linton had written.
The National Joint Action Movement (NJAM) also wrote to the Electoral Commission alleging that Henderson made a “false declaration” on his nomination form and therefore not qualified to contend the elections. Other private persons such as Dr. Irving Pascal, Judith Pestaina, Atherton Martin, Loftus Durand, and CCM President Zarr Emmanuel also urged the government to disqualify Henderson or have the scheduled election disrupted on November 25.
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