Dear Mr Editor,
Your readers will be aware that the government has now published on its website a Bill for an Elections Act, 2019 (the 2019 Bill). http://www.gov.ai/documents/Elections%20Act%202019%20-%20BILL%20Final%20for%20consultation.pdf. I have to register my disappointment at this attempt by the government to sneak this 2019 Bill into law. I invite everyone to have a look at the table of contents at the beginning of the document if you do not have the time to read the entire 2019 Bill.
This is supposed to be Government’s effort to bring into effect the election-related recommendations of the 2017 Report of the Constitutional and Electoral Reform Committee (the 2017 Report). But, the 2019 Bill omits two of the most sincerely desired and widely welcomed reforms to our elections procedure recommended by the 2017 Report. These were: (1) the revision of the Voters’ List by holding a new enumeration, and repeating it every ten years; and (2) introducing into our elections procedure for the first time provisions for campaign financing regulation. We can’t revise the Voters’ List and clean it up unless the law provides for enumeration to be held periodically. We can’t prevent vote-buying unless the law obliges politicians to publish their accounts. Under the recommendations of the 2017 Report, all politicians and political parties were going to be required under heavy penalties to publish their audited financial statements in a timely fashion.
I say “sneak into law” because of the applicability of Mr Hubert Hughes’ well-known aphorism. He said, “If you want to keep something secret from Anguillians, most of whom do not read, you have only to write it down on paper and put the paper in front of them. They will never read it.” In Anguilla, to be transparent and accountable about some important new proposal, it is necessary to talk to the people and explain what you propose. It is not sufficient merely to write it down and put the paper on a website and never speak openly about it.
Government has now held its first public meeting on Tuesday, May 14 to present the 2019 Bill to the public. This was at St Augustine’s Anglican Church at East End. I was away from Anguilla and was not able to attend the consultation. But, a perusal of an article in the 17 May The Anguillian newspaper appears to show that none of The government representatives at the consultation took the opportunity to explain what was being proposed (by way of deviating from the major recommendations).
In addition to being a betrayal of Anguillian expectations, I believe this 2019 Bill is contrary to what our government promised Lord Ahmad (the British Minister for the Overseas Territories) would be the way going forward. Lord Ahmad, it will be recalled, gave in to government’s request to urgently introduce by Order in Council the constitutional and electoral changes taken from the 2017 Report that they wanted done immediately. In exchange, government agreed that they would thereafter turn their attention to implementing the remainder of the constitutional and electoral reform proposals set out in the 2017 Report. Government promised Lord Ahmad that they would enact ALL of the major constitutional and electoral reform proposals, save where they secured the approval of Anguillians to making any variation. Government appears not to be living up to that promise.
All well-intentioned Anguillians must demand that the Attorney-General’s Chambers incorporate in the 2019 Bill the omitted recommendations for cleaning up the Voters’ List and for introducing campaign financing regulation. The sections have already been drafted in the main part following best practice elsewhere in the Caribbean and can easily be incorporated. Only bad faith with the Anguillian public would cause the provisions to continue to be left out.
If your readers consider this matter important enough, they will make their views known at any future “town hall” meeting and at every other opportunity and through every medium until government accedes to the wishes of the people. They might indicate their dissatisfaction directly to their elected representatives. Letters, emails, telephone calls, WhatsApp and other electronic messages to their elected representatives will help. A quiet word at the Post Office, in the supermarket, or outside the church on Saturday or Sunday mornings would not hurt. Hopefully, government will as a result of public pressure come to its senses and do the right thing.
If any of your readers should have any question on any of this, they should not hesitate to contact me by email at idmitch@anguillanet.com.
Yours sincerely,
Don Mitchell
Former chair of the Constitutional and Elections Reform Committee
20 May 2019
