Local vote delayed
PRIME Minister P J Patterson yesterday announced a third postponement of the local government elections, which were scheduled to be held by monthend. The polls, he told Parliament, will now be held by June 30 this year.
Patterson told Parliament yesterday that this latest postponement was to allow for a further reform of local government, including the passage of a law to allow Portmore, St Catherine to be declared a municipality and a directly-elected mayor.
But more important, Patterson suggested, was the need to upgrade the law to bring those covering local government elections in conformity to those for the national vote.
“It would be a travesty to hold the general elections, as we have done, with a system which has been further reformed, while failing to introduce similar amendments to improve the conduct of local government elections,” Patterson told legislators. “How could we justify the simultaneous operation of two different electoral systems?”
Patterson also suggested that he wanted a full debate on the proposal by the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) for a pilot in two parish council divisions of the proposed electronic system in which computers would deliver ballots after a voter had been identified by fingerprint.
However, it has been widely held that the administration, facing a difficult economic environment and the recent controversial mis-speak by Finance Minister Omar Davies, was shy of facing the electorate.
Local government elections, which are due every three years, were last held in September 1998 and should have been held again by September 2001.
However, as the timetable drew close the Government went to Parliament for a one-year extension of the life of the 13 parish councils to allow for an overhaul of the voting system — the same reason for the current extension.
At the expiration of that extension, the Government again sought another postponement, ostensibly to allow this time more work on the local government reform. But this was after it had lost a parish parliamentary by-election and there were fears in the ruling party that it was too risky to have a local government election which it might lose, setting a momentum for the national vote.
After last October’s general election, narrowly won by his People’s National Party, Patterson pledged that “there will be no further extension of the time for the local government elections”. This meant that the vote would have taken place by monthend.
But last week, when Local Gvernment Minister Portia Simpson Miller took to the House a bill to allow for the declaration as municipalities urban communities that met the laid down criteria, the Opposition balked at some of the provisions and asked that the matter be sent to a joint select committee of Parliament.
Portmore is the only community presently in line for municipality status and the bill provides it with a grandfather clause for its declaration without the constraints of later entities. On this basis an election could have been held without the passage of the law and the vote for a Portmore mayor taking place afterwards.
But Patterson’s administration decided against that option and wrapped that decision with planned amendments to the Parish Council Act and the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation Act.
These amendments will allow for the halting and re-run of voting in a division where the authorities suspect fraud and other irregularities.
The amendment will also allow for a special election court to void an election in certain circumstances — similar to the case in national elections under the Representation of the People Act.
Patterson also argued that the coming budget debate, which is likely to be consumed by the administration’s need to introduce measures to close a deficit of eight per cent of GDP, was another compelling reason to postpone the elections. “The focus of parliamentarians must be on the legislative programme and the national budget for fiscal year 2003-2004,” the prime minister said.
In fact, he said, these issues would also be bound to occupy the interest of voters as well and would be a disservice to the country and its people if an election was held under such circumstances.
Opposition Leader Edward Seaga suggested that the budget debate be postponed by two weeks to accommodate the election and argued that the legislative amendments could be worked out over time.
But the prime minister was insistent that the electoral reforms be completed before the polls.