ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – The Electoral Reform Coalition (ERC) is asking on Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley to not attend the rally of the ruling Dominica Labour Get together (DLP) on June 1, saying it’s “ extremely inappropriate” for her to take action provided that she is at the moment the chairman of the 15-member regional integration grouping, CARICOM.
Within the four-page letter despatched to Prime Minister Mottley and copied to the CARICOM Secretary Common, Dr. Carla Barnett, the ERC chairman, Johnson Boston, stated she could be addressing an occasion lower than three months after the federal government “bulldozed electoral laws within the Home of Meeting, and declared residents’ proper to protest as patently unlawful.”
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said that the DLP wouldn’t permit opposition forces to “weaken” the nation as he defended the choice to introduce electoral reform right here.
In a press release forward of the DLP’s seventieth anniversary on June 1 this 12 months, Skerrit stated that the opposition forces now need to fake that they “care extra about democracy.
In March, the Dominica Parliament permitted electoral reform laws at the same time as police fired teargas and rubber bullets at opposition supporters who claimed that the federal government had not been clear sufficient in coping with the matter.
The Dominica authorities tabled three payments late final 12 months, specifically the Electoral Fee Invoice 2024, the Home of Meeting (Elections) Invoice 2024, and the Registration of Electors Invoice 2024. Parliament gave its approval to the laws that had been reviewed by the related people and teams since Sir Dennis Byron, the previous president of the Caribbean Court docket of Justice (CCJ), submitted his report on electoral reform on June 12, 2023.
In the course of the debate, one of many two opposition legislators, Anthony Charles, supported the measure, telling legislators that for greater than 17 years, the difficulty of electoral reform has been an “ongoing debate.
Boston recalled that final January, the ERC wrote to Mottley in her capability as CARICOM chairman “interesting for Caricom’s intervention in persuading the Authorities of Dominica to respect the rights of residents to free and truthful elections. Your response to us was dismissive.
“By no means within the 53 years of CARICOM has a sitting Chairman participated in a partisan political rally: it seems that you’re ready to set a precedent within the Commonwealth of Dominica, the place the ruling Dominica Labour Get together (DLP) has been in workplace for greater than 25 years amidst large condemnation of fraudulent election contexts.”
The ERC stated that the DLP’s seventieth anniversary shouldn’t be considered as an excuse for Time Minister Mottley “to interrupt CARICOM’s ideas of non-interference within the inner affairs of Member States.
“Any try to cover your conduct below cowl of ‘sister political occasion solidarity’ deserves to be absolutely condemned and uncovered. You, Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, are the Chairman of CARICOM till June 30, 2025, and all of your actions associated to the Commonwealth of Dominica might be thought-about in that capability,” Boston wrote.
The ERC stated it was additionally urging Barbadians “to tell their Prime Minister that it’s flawed to attend a political rally in Dominica whereas serving as CARICOM Chairman.
“The ERC additionally appeals to CARICOM heads of presidency to advise the Chairman of CARICOM in opposition to damaging Caricom’s status, which might be irreparable. If Prime Minister Mottley insists on taking part within the rally, she ought to relinquish her chairmanship of CARICOM. The ERC helps political solidarity however warns that CARICOM’s status will endure if its chairman engages in such untenable actions,” it stated in a press release.
