Managing director of the Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES) and regional pollster, Peter Wickham, has blamed the UWP for losing an election they could have otherwise won. He earlier predicted that the DLP would win the December 6 elections, but he expressed surprise that a government going for a fifth term in office could win in a landslide victory.
He said the UWP had thought that the barricading of roads, burning of refuse and laying siege to the residence of the president would work for them, but it did not.
“The UWP tried to demonize the prime minister and that didn’t work,” Wickham said. “The UWP wanted to bully Dominica into voting for them with the belief that if they didn’t, there would be riot and chaos, but clearly Dominicans were not sold on the idea. The UWP did this to themselves.”
He said the claim that the government imported 8,000 people resident in the diaspora to return home to Dominica to vote in the elections is nonsense. He cited a report by DASPA CEO, Benoit Bardouille, that only 2,700 entered the island via air and sea the week leading up to the elections. Wickham further stated that the opposition’s demand for voter ID among other electoral reform is not enough for winning an election since major countries of the world do not have voter cards.
“The UK doesn’t have one, the US does not have voter ID,” Wickham said. “You need to present evidence that people who were not properly identified or eligible to vote participated in the elections.”
Managing director of the Caribbean Agency for Political Advancement (CAPA), Alex Bruno, said a pre-election survey showed the UWP leading in 11 of the 12 constituencies already polled. He said Dominicans outside the country came back home to influence election results for the DLP. President of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), Loftus Durand, accused the DLP government of stealing the people’s votes for themselves, saying he identified people who had been resident outside Dominica for 15 years returning home to vote.
“There are instances where people who are dead, persons voted in their names,” Durand said. “At the end of the day, the number of people who descended on Dominican soil is alarming. If they want the evidence, we can give it to them so justice can prevail in the rigged process that we call a general election. We had people at various polling stations. We know who came in to vote…we have all the evidence.”
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