Po­lice fired tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets at pro­tes­tors on Wednes­day as Par­lia­ment be­gan de­bat­ing elec­toral re­form leg­is­la­tion. The po­lice had ear­li­er warned that no per­mis­sion had been grant­ed to any­one to stage and protest out­side the Par­lia­ment build­ing on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal.

The Do­mini­ca gov­ern­ment had late last year tabled the three bills, name­ly the Elec­toral Com­mis­sion Bill 2024, House of As­sem­bly (Elec­tions) Bill 2024, and Reg­is­tra­tion of Elec­tors Bill 2024, and Par­lia­ment was meet­ing Wednes­day to give its ap­proval to the leg­is­la­tion that had been re­viewed by the rel­e­vant in­di­vid­u­als and groups since Sir Den­nis By­ron, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), sub­mit­ted his re­port on elec­toral re­form on June 12, 2023.

But the Elec­toral Re­form Coali­tion said it would stage a peace­ful demon­stra­tion to reg­is­ter its dis­ap­proval over the bills that are ex­pect­ed to be passed giv­en the gov­ern­ment’s over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty.

John­ston Boston of the Elec­toral Re­form Coali­tion said he want­ed to as­sure the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and Do­mini­cans on a whole that the demon­stra­tions would be con­duct­ed “in a peace­ful man­ner.

“This protest is a di­rect ex­pres­sion of the peo­ple’s deep con­cerns and dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the pro­posed bills on elec­toral re­form,” he said, adding “as a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety it is our fun­da­men­tal right to voice our de­mands and call for trans­paren­cy in or elec­toral sys­tem”.

Leader of the main op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty (UWP), Dr.  Thom­son Fontaine told re­porters out­side the Par­lia­ment build­ing that the “peo­ple of Do­mini­ca are say­ing that the re­forms as con­tained in the leg­is­la­tion are not good enough.

“We be­lieve that what the prime min­is­ter is at­tempt­ing to do will not im­prove democ­ra­cy, it will make it worse and we are at the point where we have been ex­treme­ly pa­tient, we have wait­ed very long for elec­toral re­form and they are ask­ing is for him to do the right thing.

”Peo­ple are here be­cause they are not hap­py with this gov­ern­ment, they are not hap­py with what they have been do­ing as far as tak­ing away some of the safe­guards we have in our leg­is­la­tion,” he added.

Fontaine said that the op­po­si­tion had “sev­er­al” op­tions should the three pieces of leg­is­la­tion be ap­proved in the Par­lia­ment “which I  can't go in­to now, but let’s be very clear this will not be the end.

“This is the be­gin­ning, this is not the end and so this is some­thing we will have to fight through un­til we get it and what­ev­er hap­pens in Par­lia­ment to­day we will con­tin­ue our strug­gle,” he added.

But Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er David­son Valar­ie in­sist­ed that no per­mis­sion had been giv­en for any protest ac­tion out­side the Par­lia­ment.

“The Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca Po­lice Force ad­vis­es that the Elec­toral Re­form Coali­tion, of­fi­cials of the Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty among oth­er or­gan­is­ers have been plan­ning protest ac­tion on High Street in the vicin­i­ty of the House of As­sem­bly.

“I wish to in­form that no per­mis­sion has been sought from the Chief of Po­lice, nei­ther has there been any per­mis­sion grant­ed by the Chief of Po­lice for any protest ac­tion. There­fore any protest ac­tion in Do­mini­ca on Wednes­day…is un­law­ful.

He said the Pub­lic Or­der Act makes it clear that protest ac­tion could on­ly take place af­ter per­mis­sion has been giv­en, adding “The Com­mon­wealth of Do­mini­ca Po­lice Force is ad­vis­ing the pub­lic from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any un­law­ful or protest ac­tion in Do­mini­ca on Wednes­day”.

He warned that those in­volved in or­gan­is­ing the “il­le­gal protest or march…will be held crim­i­nal­ly li­able for any pub­lic dis­or­der that may arise from this il­le­gal protest ac­tion”.

Ear­li­er this week, Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit said he had re­quest­ed as­sis­tance from the Bar­ba­dos-based Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty  Sys­tem (RSS) to quell any dis­tur­bance on the is­land.

The  RSS was cre­at­ed in 1982 to counter threats to the sta­bil­i­ty of the re­gion in the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s. The sig­na­to­ries agreed to pre­pare con­tin­gency plans and as­sist one an­oth­er, on re­quest, in na­tion­al emer­gen­cies, pre­ven­tion of smug­gling, search and res­cue, im­mi­gra­tion con­trol, fish­ery pro­tec­tion, cus­toms and ex­cise con­trol, mar­itime polic­ing du­ties, pro­tec­tion of off-shore in­stal­la­tions, pol­lu­tion con­trol, na­tion­al and oth­er dis­as­ters, and threats to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“This is just po­lit­i­cal mis­chief.  A group of men who are just try­ing to make them­selves rel­e­vant when the peo­ple of Do­mini­ca have in­di­cat­ed that they are not rel­e­vant any­more,”  Sker­rit said then.

ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca, Mar 19, CMC

CMC/2025