The Deputy U.S. Parmanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), Alexis F. Ludwig, told the Permanent Council of the OAS that it is not commendable for Dominica to hold general elections without implementing electoral reforms. Ludwig said the OAS electoral observer missions had on several occasions urged the Dominican government to implement the recommendations of CARICOM, the OAS, and the Commonwealth to Dominica – without success.
According to Ludwig, the joint special mission of the OAS advised the Dominican government to implement electoral reforms in three main areas for the coming December 6 elections to be truly free, fair, and transparent. These three areas are –
- Cleansing of the electoral list by removing the names of deceased and ineligible voters from the list
- Removal of the names of voters who had been in the diaspora and resident outside Dominica for over five years
- Provision of photo ID cards to facilitate the identification of voters at the polls
Ludwig lamented that “sadly, the government of Dominica rejected all of these recommendations.”
The U.S. official said Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has the constitutional rights to fix election dates when he wants. But implementing the recommended reforms would not only have made the elections fair and transparent to all Dominicans, it would have demonstrated to the international community the elections meet “standards of the OAS Democratic Charter and the international norms for organizing and holding elections.”
Skerrit in an address to the nation had blamed the UWP and the CCM for his inability to implement the reforms, saying he would have done so if the opposition had not blocked his legislations in parliament. The opposition in their deposition responded that they blocked the prime minister’s legislation in parliament because it tried to legalize some unlawful aspects of the existing laws.
But Skerrit countered that there is really no point to effect any electoral reforms since the existing laws and conditions had served both the DLP and the UWP well in past elections. “It is this same process and those same laws that saw the United Workers Party increase its seat count in the last general elections in Dominica,” he stated.
All things being equal, Ludwig said the Dominica government ought to invite the Electoral Observation Mission of the OAS to monitor the coming elections, but has not done so. He said having the electoral observation mission around would have been “the gold standard in ensuring free and fair elections.”
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