St. Lucia has deployed a team of policement to assist Dominica with the coming general elections on December 6. Dominica’s Minister of National Security, Senator Hermangild Francis, disclosed that the St. Lucia police contingent arrived the country ahead of the elections to assist the Dominica Police Force with maintaining peace and order.
The minister said St. Lucia is a sister island with Dominica and both countries are members of the Regional Security System (RSS). This necessitates the need for all RSS member countries to provide technical, military, financial, and intelligence to one another in times of critical national crises. It is yet uncertain if other countries in the region will deploy law enforcements to assist with Dominica’s election, but it appears they would do so if the prime minister makes the request.
Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Observation Group (COG) has also arrived to Dominica following an alledged invitation from Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit. There were 10 observers in the team that arrived the country since November 27, and they will monitor both the electoral process and any court proceedings that result from the elections.
The observers were chosen from the Commonwealth states to help with the elections. This became necessary following the pockets of violence and civil unrest that greeted the announcement of December 6 as the date for the election. Protesters took to the streets to burn tyres and set up roadblocks with the support of the UWP and the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) among other supporters.
The UWP, CCM and demonstrators are calling for electoral reforms before the general elections. The agitators are calling for cleansing of the voters register and issuance of voters ID cards as well as postponement of the elections among other demands. The DLP administration said there is no need for any reforms given that the existing laws have served all political parties well in the past 41 years.
While the DLP government and President Charles Savarin have called for peace and calm across the country as election day draws near, protesters in Marigot constituency from which UWP leader Lennox Linton and former PM Edison James came from continue to protest and vow to disrupt the elections. This situation warrants the intervention of external mediators such as the COG to monitor the elections and ensure peace and calm all over Dominica.
This article is copyright © 2019 DOM767
