Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has slammed the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion for a plan to ask re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance in or­der to qual­i­fy for these po­si­tions in fu­ture elec­tions.

How­ev­er, the EBC has stat­ed that it ob­tained le­gal ad­vice con­firm­ing it can ask ap­pli­cants for the po­si­tion of re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to de­clare whether they are mem­bers of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

This, af­ter Row­ley and lead­ers of oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties slammed state­ments by EBC chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh that re­turn­ing of­fi­cers will be asked to de­clare their “par­ty al­le­giance and mem­ber­ship be­fore work­ing in polling sta­tions.”

Ramk­er­rysingh made the com­ments on Tues­day at a train­ing ses­sion on gen­er­al elec­tion cov­er­age for re­porters host­ed by the T&T Pub­lish­ers and Broad­cast­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTP­BA) Me­dia In­sti­tute of the Caribbean and British Coun­cil.

But for once on an is­sue, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and heads of op­po­si­tion en­ti­ties were on the same page.

Tak­ing to his Face­book page, Row­ley said, “The po­si­tion of the EBC to ques­tion EBC staff about their vote is AB­SOLUTE­LY UN­AC­CEPT­ABLE. The vote in this coun­try is se­cret and no per­son in pub­lic em­ploy­ment must be forced to re­veal how he or she vot­ed or in­tend to vote.”

He added, “Re­turn­ing of­fi­cers are not to com­ply with this strange and dis­turb­ing de­vel­op­ment at the EBC.

“The PNM, which has not been con­sult­ed on this mat­ter, is res­olute­ly op­posed to this un­nec­es­sary and pos­si­bly il­le­gal ac­tion. Where did this come from?”

How­ev­er, in a state­ment yes­ter­day evening, the EBC is­sued a state­ment clar­i­fy­ing Ramk­er­rysingh’s state­ment and its po­si­tion.

It said, “The Com­mis­sion would like to clar­i­fy that re­cent me­dia re­ports sug­gest­ing that the EBC is ask­ing re­turn­ing of­fi­cers to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance are mis­lead­ing and in­ac­cu­rate.”

The EBC ex­plained that dur­ing Tues­day’s me­dia work­shop, Ramk­er­rysingh ad­dressed a ques­tion raised about po­ten­tial po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions of re­turn­ing of­fi­cers.

“The EBC has re­ceived al­le­ga­tions from var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties about re­turn­ing of­fi­cers be­ing mem­bers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties. To ad­dress these con­cerns and safe­guard the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process, the com­mis­sion sought le­gal ad­vice on re­quir­ing ap­pli­cants for the po­si­tion of re­turn­ing of­fi­cer to de­clare whether they are a mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“The le­gal opin­ion con­firmed that such an in­quiry is both ad­vis­able and law­ful. It dis­tin­guish­es be­tween de­clar­ing whether one is a mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and dis­clos­ing vot­ing pref­er­ences, which is pro­tect­ed by the prin­ci­ple of se­cret bal­lot. Mem­ber­ship in a po­lit­i­cal par­ty im­plies a lev­el of al­le­giance or af­fil­i­a­tion that could po­ten­tial­ly cre­ate the per­cep­tion of bias or ap­par­ent bias.

“The EBC em­pha­sis­es its com­mit­ment to im­par­tial­i­ty and trans­paren­cy in the elec­toral process. Re­quir­ing ap­pli­cants to de­clare their mem­ber­ship is a proac­tive step to mit­i­gate po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est and main­tain pub­lic con­fi­dence in the elec­toral sys­tem... The fo­cus re­mains on en­sur­ing that the elec­toral process is free, fair, and cred­i­ble.”

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­spond to calls yes­ter­day.

But UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said, “There are ob­vi­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues in­volved in ask­ing for or mak­ing em­ploy­ment de­ci­sions based on peo­ple’s po­lit­i­cal as­so­ci­a­tions.”

On EBC’s sub­se­quent state­ment, Tan­coo added, “Ques­tions emerge: is the EBC go­ing to hire or de­ny em­ploy­ment to some­one sole­ly on the ba­sis of par­ty mem­ber­ship? Would the ex­ec­u­tive man­age­ment and com­mis­sion­ers be held to the same yard­stick? Who is the lawyer used by the EBC and at what cost? One re­calls an ac­tion tak­en by the EBC on an elec­tion day that was de­ter­mined in the court to be il­le­gal.”

Bad move say HOPE, NTA lead­ers

HOPE deputy leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith said he didn’t see the EBC’s move re­gard­ing re­turn­ing of­fi­cers de­clar­ing their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance as a good one and agreed with the Prime Min­is­ter.

“It’s a ter­ri­ble de­ci­sion. It can open the door to a lot of com­pli­ca­tions. What hap­pens if they de­clare their in­ter­est and a par­ty that lost takes the is­sues to court, would the courts in­fer that the RO wasn’t as ob­jec­tive as they should have been?”

He added, “It’s a recipe for trou­ble, we al­ready have pol­i­tics di­vid­ed by race, peo­ple as­sum­ing Afro-T&T cit­i­zens are for PNM and In­do-T&T ones sup­port UNC. Where the is­sue is re­lat­ed to democ­ra­cy - your vote is se­cret, pri­vate, anony­mous. Vot­ing is a ba­sic fun­da­men­tal right al­lowed un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. If you im­pose on the RO the need to de­clare their in­ter­est to a par­ty, wouldn’t that breach their right to en­ti­tle­ment of a se­cret, pri­vate vote?”

Hamel-Smith said EBC’s clar­i­fi­ca­tion raised more ques­tions than an­swers, since the clar­i­fi­ca­tion on­ly ref­er­enced ask­ing an ap­pli­cant for the post of re­turn­ing of­fi­cer whether they be­long to a par­ty and it stat­ed that per­sons who do will not be en­gaged. He said EBC should rather al­low par­ties to have more over­sight in the process.

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith said the move pos­es sig­nif­i­cant risks to cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and doesn’t ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress the core is­sues of elec­toral in­tegri­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty.

He said hold­ing a po­lit­i­cal be­lief does not in­her­ent­ly lead to bias or mis­con­duct in ful­fill­ing one’s du­ties and ask­ing ROs to de­clare their po­lit­i­cal al­le­giances is un­like­ly to solve con­cerns about im­par­tial­i­ty in the elec­toral process.

Fol­low­ing EBC’s clar­i­fi­ca­tion yes­ter­day, Grif­fith said he un­der­stood the com­mis­sion is try­ing to en­sure im­par­tial­i­ty and pre­vent bias - but felt they were go­ing about it the wrong way.

“The on­ly way the EBC will know if some­one is a par­ty mem­ber is if they get the da­ta from the po­lit­i­cal par­ties and ob­vi­ous­ly, no par­ty will give the EBC their reg­is­tered mem­ber­ship list - that’s con­fi­den­tial,” he said.

Grif­fith said the best way to en­sure trans­paren­cy in the vot­ing process is bring­ing in in­de­pen­dent ob­servers and to have elec­tron­ic sys­tems which could de­tect rig­ging.

An­a­lyst: Let’s be clear on what was said

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he at­tend­ed Tues­day’s me­dia work­shop when EBC chair­man Mark Ramk­er­rysingh’s state­ment was made.

Ra­goonath said one should be clear on what was said and what’s sug­gest­ed, not­ing what was said was that re­turn­ing of­fi­cers are go­ing to be re­quired to de­clare whether they are mem­bers of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“It didn’t say, ‘who you’re vot­ing for’, it just said if you’re a reg­is­tered mem­ber of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” Ra­goonath added.

He said what wasn’t said is if the in­for­ma­tion would be in the pub­lic do­main or kept pri­vate by the EBC.

Ra­goonath said the EBC chair­man didn’t say in the fo­rum why he de­cid­ed to go down that road. He said there are sev­er­al ex­am­ples of pos­si­ble rea­sons that could cause it. That in­clud­ed the Venezue­lan elec­tion, prob­lems with Guyana’s elec­tions and com­plaints in T&T in the past by some on get­ting reg­is­tered as a can­di­date.