TUESDAY, 24th SEPTEMBER,
2013
Thank you, Madame Speaker.
Madame Speaker, I
listened too many in the Members of this Honourable House today, and this
evening, and unlike my friend from the constituency of All Saints East and St.
Luke, the Honourable Chester Hughes, Madame Speaker, I do not plan to play any
politics with this most important piece of the peoples’ work that we are here
to do this evening, Madame Speaker.
Because for indeed
Madame Speaker, our very essence of democracy in this country, and what we have
been accustomed to over generations and many years, Madame Speaker, is being
eradicated and withered away, Madame Speaker.
Madame Speaker, as I
have said I don’t plan to play politics, but I want to prove my case tonight
that what we are doing here I would venture to even say that it is on the verge
of illegality, in terms of the proclamation that is before us that was issued
on September 10th, and gazetted.It was issued on September 9th,
and then gazetted on the 10th, Madame Speaker.
Because you see Madame
Speaker, this is a seminal moment in the history of this country, and we cannot
afford, with such an important piece of legislation, to play petty politics and
try to score cheap political mileage, and to attack members on this side of the
House, because we are constructively, earnestly, and honestly concerned with
what is going on in this country right now, as far as it relates to
re-registration, and the upcoming general elections, that are due in Antigua
and Barbuda, March 2014 or before.
Because you see Madame
Speaker, this Honourable House has been convened today for the most part, almost
exclusively, other than the bill that we passedthe Personal Income Tax Bill, to
deal withadoptingthisresolution, and we must make sure that the adoption of
this resolution, Madame Speaker, that we are seeking to do, in fact what it’s
doing is amending the Second Schedule of the Representation of the People Act,
the people out there must know what we are doing, pertaining to voter Re-registration
Regulations, that will affect every single eligible voter across the length and
breadth of Antigua and Barbuda.
Madame Speaker today
is Tuesday, September 24, 2013. The so-called re-registration of voters for the
March 2014 General Elections, Madame Speaker, was scheduled to begin yesterday,
September 23, 2013. These amendments that we are seeking to do here tonight and
today, Madame Speaker, to the Registration Regulations must first be adopted by
Parliament in order for the so called re-registration exercise to commence.
But, Madame Speaker, since
July 22, 2010, I want the people out there to understand this, 2010 or more
than three years, the Electoral Commission, Antigua and Barbuda Electoral
Commission, Madame Speaker,they have been seized of these facts, and why…..?
My question tonight is
why at this eleventh hour, did your coming to this Parliament, hauling us here,
and seeking to pass these regulations at the eleventh hour.
Clearly in my view
Madame Speaker,somebody either does not understand their job, their functions,
or maybethey understand it, and they are not doing their job, Madame Speaker.
It cannot be ok for
the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission to proceed to haul this parliament
back into sitting when this House has been convened for no fewer than ten (10)
to twelve (12) times since the law was amended.
More than thirty-six
(36) months now have elapsed since these amendments came into effect, more than
thirty-six (36) months, and up until this moment, Madame Speaker, up until now the
Electoral Commission never moved to indicate that there had to be steps that had
to be taken first, before we came back to this parliament.
I humbly suggest to
you Madame Speaker, without casting any wrongful intent, any malicious
aspersions on anyone’s character or personality, that that is
unexceptional. It is shameful, and it is
a shameful display of someone’s inefficiency at work at the Antigua and Barbuda
Electoral Commission.
Madame Speaker, I have
in hand, and I crave your indulgence, the proclamation issued by the Governor
General on Monday the 9th day of September 2013, or two weeks ago.
It proclaims, and I
read with your permission, Madame Speaker, it proclaims that onMonday September
23 to Friday October 25 as the periodwithin which the so-called re-registrationexercise
is to take place. The proclamation was issuedby Her Excellency upon the advice
of the Electoral Commission, as required by law. Yet, yet, Madame Speaker, and the
Attorney General ought to know this Madame Speaker.
I’m no law student; no
legal luminary, but, this proclamation that we have, that was issued and gazetted
by extra ordinary authority, on Tuesday, 10th September, 2013,
Madame Speaker, it fails to include the required reference to the specific date
on which the Register, and my legal luminary, Member for St. John’s City South,
made mention of it, and his is a hundred percent correct.
The Register must make
reference to the specific date, Madame Speaker, on which the Register of Electors
is to be published.I mean come on, it’s not here, and this fact was known to
the Electoral Commission since 2012, Madame Speaker, because it is included in
the same section of the same law, the Speech to Proclamation since 2012.Again,
Madame Speaker, someone at the Electoral Commission is not doing their job.
And, I have in my hand
here Madame Speaker, before I read from it, Madame Speaker, the failure to
specify a date for the publication of the Register or Electors makes the
Proclamation materially flawed, illegal, null and void, and it has to be
re-done, and the Attorney General knows that.Several lawyers have examined the
law and the documents, they have seen it.
And, I have in my hand
here, and again with your permission, and I quote from the Representation of
the People (Amendment) Act, 2010. I will
give you a copy later, number six (6) of 2010, well it is in the Parliament,
and we passed it here. Number six (6), Madame Speaker, published in the
Official Gazette, Volume thirty (30), number forty-one (41), dated the 22nd
July, 2010.
And, if we look to the
new section six (6), on page six (6)
Section 6: Amendment
of section 18 – Requirement to register
And the new section
18, subsection 1 (a), Madame Speaker, it requires the proclamation of the registers
dates, and I will read the exact wording, it says,
“Section one – On the coming into force of this section, the
Governor General shall, by Proclamation, specify a period within which a person
who is qualified under section 16 may apply in accordance with the Registration
Regulations to be registered as an elector in the constituency in which he
qualifies to be so registered.”
That was always so,
even in the previous legislation. What
was amended Madame Speaker, is section (a), (b) and (c). And here Madame Speaker, section 18 1 (a)
says;
“In respect of the period immediately subsequent to the
commencement of this section, the Commission shall publish the register not
later than such date as the Governor General, after consultation with the Commission,
shall by Proclamation specify; and then (b) goes on to say after the date
specified by the Governor General by Proclamation under paragraph (a), at
intervals of not more than six months, but not later than 30th June
and 31st December in each year”.
There you have it
Madame Speaker, clear as daylight. How
can we just make such a fundamental flaw, and come here, we have this
Representation of the People (Amendment) Act, 2010, that this Government passed
in 2010, we know that it must and requires us to definitely not just give the
date and the start of registration, but you have to also put in the
proclamation the date for the Register of Electors to be published. My
goodness, how could we just miss that?
And, Madame Speaker, nearly
two years ago, this Parliament was asked by amendment to create the position of
Chief
Registration Officer, which
we did. I think it was law number ten (10); no sorry it was law number twelve
(12) of 2012, Madame Speaker. It was passed with sweeping changes. May 2001,
the Representation of the Peoples (Amendment) Act, 2010, the duties of the
Chief Registration Officer that was outlined in that Act included“the
preparation and maintenance of the Register of Electors.” And, that is her
duty, that we came here to this parliament and we passed in law number twelve
(12) of 2012.
It continued, that the
Chief Registration Officer other duties, was to properly prepare the Register
of Electors. There were to bepreliminary
lists published on April 30th, Madame Speaker, as mandated by the
law, Madame Speaker. There were no preliminary lists on April 30th. There were no lists orregisters created by
June 30 2013. None!As required by the law!
I go one step further
Madame Speaker, and this is not politics like my good friend the Honourable
Member is trying to play. This is
reality, and this is the law. And, when the Honourable Leader of the
Opposition, the Honourable Gaston Browne, Member of St. John’s City West, realized
and his legal luminaries advised him, Madame Speaker, what he did was he wrote
to the Chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, about the
absence of the Registers, and what he got, he got a rather nasty nasty reply
was forthcoming to him. He has them there.
He will deal with that.
Madame Speaker, I go
further, it is not just the date for the Registers that was eliminated out of
the proclamation. Additionally, there was no order bringing Law No. 12 of 2011
into effect. No order and that has to be done.
The procedure requires
an order of the Minister to bring the law into effect. Yet, there is a
Proclamation and a Resolution before us but no Order preceding these two
instruments.
The whole thing is
wrong, completely wrong. There must be
an order, there must be a date. The
Minister must issue an order. And, I had three Queen Councils look at this;
this is not Asot Michael trying to grand stand here.
There must be an
order;there must be a date in a proclamation.
Someone at the Electoral Commission is not doing their job.
You know Madame
Speaker, that the Chief Registration Officer was tasked with many functions and
duties that bearexclusively to her and to that position on the registration of
voters. And, those duties Madame Speaker, as we are all aware came after,
because we have court cases, that Sir Gerald took, we have court cases that
started today, that’s challenging that very amendment that we did to that
legislation,were we stripped away,and emasculated the duties of the Supervisor
of Elections, which was enshrined within the constitution.
And those
responsibilities, Madame Speaker, those very responsibilities, that was
enshrined and bestowed upon the Supervisor of Elections, were then handed over
to the Chief Registration Officer.
So, the Supervisor of
Elections was totally stripped and totally marginalized.And in fact Madame
Speaker, truth be told, all those staff up there at the Antigua and Barbuda
Electoral Commission, all of those staff was institutional memory, who could
help to make the process flow seamlessly, and really productively, and get
everything going properly. What has happened Madame Speaker, is that there are
being shoved aside and marginalized.
And, then the Chief
Registration Officer, herself, is failing in here duty. Never before in the twelve years history of
the Electoral Commission have we seen such a dereliction of duty. Clearly, the Electoral
Commission is not ensuring the completion of the work assigned by this
Parliament. And, then there bringing us back to this parliament, and letting us
come here to make fools of ourselves.
Madame Speaker, I have
also noted with some concern, in the Registration (Amendment) Regulations, that
we are proposing, that nowhere in the rules or regulations, Madame Speaker,
does the Registration Officer; the registration officer in every single
constituency, there is no legal obligation on that Registration Officer to give
the Scrutineer of both Political Parties, a copy of the list of persons that
are registered daily.
Now, I don’t know if
it was in the previous law, or if it was taken out, I would be a liar to say
that I know, but, I know the practice has been that every single day my scrutineer
would be handed by the Registration Officer, a set of persons, I think a pink
or green slip, pink slips of those persons that have been registered.
But, if you look at
section five (5) on page 5, Amendment of Regulations 13, it says;
“Regulation 13 of the principal Regulation is revoked and
substituted by the following - three (3) says; the registration officer shall
retain the original certificate and shall deliver the duplicate of the
certificate to the applicant”.
That is good, but what
about the Scrutineer?
We need to enshrine
that Mr. Attorney General.
Anyway, the ultimate
blame for non-performance, Mr. Attorney General, is not us here in Parliament.
It has to lie somewhere. Somebody up
there has to take responsibility. Not you,
maybe not us, well the Chairman of the Commission, is the Chairman, and he has
to ensure that the tasks that have been clearly mandated by Parliament under
the law, thathe has to make sure that those tasks assigned to the officers,
like the Chief Registration Officer, the Chief Data Officer, all the other
Chiefs up there that they took away the function from the Supervisor of
Elections, that they have to make sure that those duties are carried out.
I mean does the
Commission not have a lawyer? Of course
the Commission has a lawyer, but in all likelihood the way things are ran up
there, is that the lawyer will render his/her advice, the Chairman not
bothering with her, he’s not going to take the advice, he will say “A foo
me decision”, that has become the new modus operandi, in Antigua and
Barbuda judging from recent events Madame Speaker.
Madame Speaker, I am
humbly submitting to you and this Parliament tonight that the 2014 general
elections cannot and should not, and will not be anything like the debacle of
the 2009 general elections. The Antigua and Barbuda people do not wish that
what we went through where you had persons who lined up in polling stations
from five o’clock in the morning, even before they open at six, and was not
able to vote until one o’clock in the afternoon. And, no paper was there, no ink was
there. I mean it was a debacle. We can’t repeat that. We don’t want to be the laughing stock again of
the Commonwealth of Nations, Madame Speaker.
We do not wish to be a laughing
stock of the CARICOM or the Organization of American States, or all these
International Institutions or any of the foreign media once again. I mean Madame Speaker let us be real, I am not
attacking anybody. But, if the Chairman
of the Electoral Commission cannot do his job, then let him tend his
resignation. Let somebody else more
competent, and impartial, and has the interest of fair play and the country at
heart. And, who knows the law, or who would
understand legal advice and take it.
The Parliament of
Antigua and Barbuda, Madame Speaker, we ought not to be convened for the
purpose of having Parliamentarians today tell the Chairman of the Electoral
Commission that he has to perform several tasks which the law commands him to do.
He ought to read the law, and if he can’t read the law, get someone to advise
him. I mean Madame Speaker, if he were
not so busy harassing his staff up there, he would be focused in on the law and
the procedures, and would know what the proclamation says, and know that there
must be an order, and know that the proclamation must have a date.
Madame Speaker, I want
to say to this parliament tonight that I am not imputing any improper motives.
I want to give you a fact that you don’t know.
Madame Speaker, I want to say afact, and this is an irrefutable
fact. This afternoon, you talk about
harassment, and that I am imputing improper motives.
This afternoon, a
letter was handed to Miss Manwarren, the most experienced Registration Officer,
up there at the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission, transferring her out
of the ABEC Headquarters; however, Madame Speaker, a court order exist which
forbids her removal from that office. And, they still defied that court
order. What is going on in this country?Is
it the Wild Wild West that we defy laws and court orders with impunity and get
away with it?
That court order was
also agreed-to by consent by the head of the Electoral Commission, by both
parties. That kind of harassment was to end with the court order. At this last
moment, on the eve of the start of the re-registration or de-registration, on
Monday, this is what we are seeing happen on the eve, and you tell me that this
is right, and that they are supposed to start re-registration Monday.
No, Madame Speaker,
that cannot be right. It is
unacceptable. This draft resolution and
the accompanying Proclamation cannot go forward. We must repeal it. The Governor General’s Proclamation has to be
amended. It is not lawful to proclaim the dates, then start one week later, it
has in here the dates, Madame Speaker, it says, and this is the proclamation by
the Gazette, and it says the date starting from the 23rd day of
September, to the 25th day of October, 2013. And, how willy-nilly the Chairman of the
Electoral Commission can say, that we’re going to reduce it by one week, and we’re
going to just start on the 30th, and reduce registration period by
one week.
I go on now, Madame
Speaker to the new machines. The new
machines, Madame Speaker, and this is a very serious matter, can only register
one elector every six minutes or 10 electors every hour. And, that is a fact
Madame Speaker; if you go an speak to the staff up there, or to the ones that
are being trained, just to take your picture Madame Speaker, your information,
to look through your passport, and fill in the forms, will take more than one
minute. So that is ten electors every hour, Madame Speaker, so in a 12 hour
day, the maximum to be registered is 120 electors, if you have one machine.
Registration in 23 working days—assuming Saturdays are included—would result in
2,760 electors getting registered in St. Peter. In the latest register of St.
Peter, you have more than 3500 electors registered under continuous
registration. How is it possible to register that many electors in 23 working
days? How are we going to achieve that? The Proclamation of the Governor
General has to be withdrawn and a new Proclamation issued, Madame Speaker.
I mean the Prime Minister
can decide after the first list, after claims and objections, after the
forty-five day period to call elections.
He can say to call elections December 31st, and then only
those persons that got unto to the list in those 23 days, I want the people of
this country to know that, would be entitled to vote. How are we to register nearly sixty thousand
people? Is it not nearly fifty-three
thousand people that registered the last time?
How are they going to accomplish the registration, if the Prime Minister
has the prerogative to dissolve Parliament and call the elections at any
time? So, how are we supposed to
register….and Mr. Leader you should write to the Commonwealth Observer, you
should write to the OAS, you should write to every single Prime Minister in the
CARICOM, to tell them what is going on in this country.
You can’t tell
everybody go and get registered in twenty-three (23) days; you can have persons
overseas, someone at school or university, someone sick, no registration on
Saturdays, no registration on Sundays.
They must register between seven o’clock in the morning and seven
o’clock in the evening, from Monday to Friday.
Madame Speaker, there
is also a plan and I must be honest, as the Electoral Office has said, to put
more than one registration unit or machine in the bigger constituencies. Even
if that is so, the number of scrutineers, in those multiple machine units, must
also be increased. Because, if they put two or three machines in the St. Mary’s
North Constituency, yet you only have one scrutineer per shift, how will your
scrutineer, if when they are registering persons on two or more machines
do. Will she have to run machine to the
next? And, you say this process is
supposed to take less than six minutes.
Madame Speaker, yet,
the Resolution we are proposing here tonight makes two Scrutineers the absolute
maximum for each political party’s appointments. And, I am saying that is not
enough. What happens in the lunch
hour?
I called Ms. Generis
Robinson when she said that I had to send an additional scrutineer to be
registered. I asked her what were the
hours, and she replied from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and then from 3:00 p.m. to
7:00 p.m. some evenings they may go later than seven if they require. So what
happens when the first scrutineer wants to take a lunch hour? What’s going to
happen? Will there be no scrutineer
there?
She admitted that they
have thought about that, and you can appoint a third scrutineer, and to send
them for training, but, the political parties have to pay for that third
scrutineer. That is what her answer was to me.
Thatthe political parties have to pay for that third scrutineerto
accommodate our two scrutineers, so that one can go for a lunch hour. What nonsense is that?
Madame Speaker, the
inefficiencies cannot be built-into the law. That cannot work when you have two
units present, even in a single geographic location, for instance in the larger
constituencies. You are going to have to assign at least four scrutineers to
the larger constituencies, such as St. George, Rural West, to any constituency
that has over three thousand registered voters. You cannot get over three
thousand five hundred persons registered – that is assuming that everyone is
desirous of registering –it cannot happen.
This resolution does exactly that.
Madame Speaker, I want
to put to you, that the start of the case today in the High Court, which
challenges the unlawful and unconstitutional attempt to strip the Supervisor of
Elections of her authorities and duties, but, maybe the timing with this
sitting coincides. I am not cynical or
suspicious, but, maybe just so it coincides with the timing of this sitting, in
order, Madame Speaker, to attempt to make null and void the anticipated
declaration of the Court. That is not a new strategy by the Government, Madame
Speaker. We have come here before Parliament, while court cases have been going
on, and appeals, and passed laws to attempt to try, Madame Speaker, to void
declarations of the court.
And. what we are
seeing again this evening and again is a propensity in this country for
unlawfulness. The plan to hold registration in a super center, which they were
thinking of, and had it not been for the wise advice of both sides, since the
Honourable Political Leader, Member for St. John’s City West, and the Member
for All Saints East and St. Luke, who got up and really put forward their
argument to the Chairman, who did not even care what they were saying at the
time. Absolute disdain and contempt he treated
a member of the UPP, Political Leader.
And Madame Speaker
that was crazy too, to try and pack sixty thousand voters down at one super
centre, where the air conditioning does not even work.
Madame Speaker, I beg
of you my colleagues on the other side that not because you’re in Government,
to amend this resolution. Amend this Proclamation. Send it back and let us
start again.
Because, if you are
not going to send it back, you are going to have a lovely court case on Monday,
Attorneys Guthrie and Astaphan are already here.
Madame Speaker, in all
seriousness, in concluding, this cannot stand.
This Parliament cannot be made to look foolish, and to be embarrassed
once again, by someone, and that is the point that I am trying to bring across,
in whom the people and the citizens of this country ought to have faith in,
Madame Speaker.
Madame Speaker, the
Chairman of the Electoral Commission is supposed to inspire confidence, but,
you know Madam Speaker, you know what the Chairman on Observer Radio, said on
June the 23rd, and I crave your indulgence Madame Speaker, June 23rd,
2011. Both on the radio and it was
printed, in an interview with Colin Sampson, Mr. Juno Samuel says and I quote;
“He said, with the headline in the papers saying New
Law Disenfranchise Commonwealth Citizens – “But
as I understand it, once the new legislation comes into effect, it has umm, the
old legislation which was enacted is no more the law, so ahh, it would seem to
me, that ok this is the new legislation, and this is the new requirement you
have to be here for seven years. The
list that we had before, that list is null and void, and if the list is null
and void, then that list does not exist basically, so now we start again. So you now come in. What’s your name? How
long have been here? And you present your documents; to show me how long you
have been here”.
“As you know
the Commonwealth, if you’re here less than seven years (you’re not eligible)
even if you are registered under the previous law, you now become
de-registered, (well that is my understanding of it)”.
So, in other words
Madame Speaker, he has told the whole Antigua and Barbuda, is that he doesn’t
care whether you are here for thirteen years or whether or not you have a
voter’s ID card, and you voted last elections. The law no longer exists, the
requirement is now three years, and you are off the list. And, that is the modus operandi, the intent,
behind what we are doing with this re-registration.
And, they are trying
to say that the list is padded. How
could we in Opposition in 2009 pad a list?
You control the
Electoral Commission, you control the machinery, and we’re in Opposition, the
Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party, and we pad a list. And you all still win the
election.
And now Madame
Speaker, the intent behind this whole re-registration is to frustrate those ten
thousand Commonwealth Nationals out there.
Why, because they feel that the Guyanese, and the Jamaicans, and the
Santa Dominicans, and the Dominicans and the Montserratians, that they are not
going to vote for them, Madame Speaker.
That cannot be right
Madame Speaker.
You can’t put a
whole country through the agony and frustration to get persons registered in
twenty-three days.
How much millions of
dollars it’s going to cost in man power and machinery. I don’t know the figures, but I am sure it’s
going to cost at least six to ten to twelve million dollars for this
re-registration. And to do what!
Because, you are
fearful of losing the elections, paranoid, but I want to say to them Madame
Speaker and I want to tell the people out there that they will not
succeed. I have confidence in our
lawyers, because they have lost every single case for nine years, but they will
not succeed.
The Prime Minister
don’t listen to the Attorney General, he listens to a so called lawyer named
Datadin. Had he listened to the Attorney
General he would have won more cases, Madame Speaker.
But, Madame Speaker,
they will not succeed with the de-registration of the Commonwealth Citizens, as
soon as they try that next week, we’re going to carry them to court. The leader has already said so.
But, Madame Speaker,
I want to submit to this Honourable House that even ifthey were to succeed in
the de-registration, and take off 8,000, 9,000, 10,000 Commonwealth Citizens,
the indigenous born and bred Antiguans and Barbudans, they will lose them, and
have lost them, and they are not going to vote for them.
We saw what happened
in Barbuda. That was history. Thirty-two years the Antigua Labour Party did
not win the Council, and look what happened Madame Speaker, look at how history
was created.
What do you want to
tell me, that the mock elections or the simulated elections that was done by
the Free and Fair Election League. Sixteen – zero. Even if they have a margin of error at
twenty-five, thirty percent not even one seat.
And, you know Rick James don’t love the Labour Party.
So what do want to
tell me, not even one seat, Madame Speaker, and what it shows is the
propensity. We did not do any
mobilization; we didn’t call one constituent and asked them to go to Epicurean
or Bargain Centre to vote. And, people
went. Eleven hundred and something and
they could not win.
So the point I’m
making Madam Speaker, is that God is on our side, and when you know you’re
doing something just, Madame Speaker, but they are paranoid over there.
I am so disappointed
in the Honourable Member for St. John’s Rural West, Madame Speaker, it’s only
because of the love, and the bonds, and friendships, and the caring, and the
passion that I have for the people of St. Peters why I would never neglect
them. I will never go to another
constituency, or else, Madame Speaker, but I want to tell you, I would love a
fight with the Honourable Member for St. John’s Rural West.
If I wasn’t in St.
Peter and in another constituency, I would have gone down there and take him
on, because, he has done absolutely nothing in his constituency. You know how many young people went to the
branch meeting, and you know how many of them said he passed them with his
glassed wined up, and zoomed he gone.
Baldwin Spencer, the
grassroots’ Trade Unionist that we knew in this country, no longer has time for
his people.
Madame Speaker, I
will close.
I want to say though
that the Chairman of the Electoral Commission is supposed to be highly regarded
and respected and his integrity is supposed to be unquestionable. And, our very presence here this Tuesday, 24th
September, at seven minutes past eight, more than twenty-four hours after the
registration is supposed to have commenced is testament of his incapacity, and
I cannot Madame Speaker, will not for the benefit of the people of this
country, and in good conscience could vote in favour of this resolution.
No way, Madame
Speaker. Thank You.
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