Sir James makes suggestions to help prevent any manipulation of elections

A former prime minister has made at least four suggestions that he believes will help prevent any manipulation of an election in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Sir James Mitchell, who was Prime Minister from 1984 to 2000 was speaking on BOOM FM last week when he shared some of his thoughts on the recently concluded Election Petitions matter.

He said that evidence in the case pointed to irregularities in the electoral process. And the former New Democratic Party (NDP) leader congratulated lead counsel for the petitioners, Stanley ‘Stalky’ John for helping to expose “irregularities with regard to democracy in St Vincent”.

“My view, very firmly is that there should be no registration of any voters after the Parliament dissolves,” Mitchell said, as he expressed belief that moving people into different constituencies at the last minute is one way of manipulating the electoral process.

“I challenge any of the bureaucrats to go into the records of elections and tell me how many young people registered really after the Parliament is dissolved…what happens in those last times. The supervisor of elections are so busy with the elections, they cannot monitor properly the movement of the people into new consituencies and when you winning an election by five or 10 votes, that is when the stealing can take place because you moving from your strong area to your weak areas. That legislation should be changed,” he said.

The former prime minister also suggested that no cellular phones be allowed at polling stations as voters can take photographs as proof that they voted for a particular politician in order to get something in return.

“Hear what I telling you? No cellphones should be allowed in the polling station, period,” Mitchell said. “We need an amendment to the Representation of the People Act to abolish last minute registration and at the same time, ban the use of cell phones in the polling station and if necessary, set the machinery in place to make sure that there are no cellphones there.”

Mitchell’s third suggestion is that the voting booth have plastic sheeting around it so that voters can be visible when they are in the booth.

“You should be in the open in a room where people can see what you doing in there. They wouldn’t see what your vote is but they can see if you taking pictures or anything like that,” he said.

He also said that there should be heavy penalties for irregularities discovered at polling stations.

And the former prime minister believes that a call should immediately be made for international observers to come and oberve the next General Elections, whenever it is called.

Mitchell added that now is the time, so that the international bodies can make the necessary preparations.

“I have been an observer in three missions and always where this takes place, the international observers want to be notified. The international observers have to prepare a budget, they have got to select observers with different interests. All of this takes time…” he said.

The former prime minister added; “we now have got established that we have irregularities, thanks to Stalky John and them. Concentrate, in my view, on the next election and getting your ducks lined up”.

Two candidates of the NDP have filed election petitions challenging the results in Central Leeward and North Windward in the 2015 general elections, with a view to having the results in those constituencies declared void. After almost three years, the matter was heard in the High Court last month and a decision is scheduled to be delivered on March 21.