Among the noteworthy developments arising
out of last week’s General Election, and the run-up to it, is the fact that
despite the prior fuss over the need for independent, international monitoring
of the process, very little has since been said about the work of two observer
missions in the country.
Such a shortcoming has been observable
across the political spectrum in the post-election phase. Instead, “we won” and
“we lost” have been the two dominant narratives signified by cheers and tears
for which first-past-the-post electoral arrangements are widely known.
The numerous passionate public appeals,
correspondence, memoranda, and meetings to ensure external monitoring now seem
like distant echoes in a fast-flowing tributary of public commentary and
contemplation.
First, the frantic calls met by the open
resistance of those in charge, then acceptance and muted surrender, to public
slander on the presumed primordial instincts of a Caribbean team.
Then emerged the support of the 56-member
Commonwealth – still, to some, not representative of “international” scrutiny,
as if a team from Malta, Dominica, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, and
Guyana, with support from a UK-based Secretariat had not met the basic features
of geographical spread.
A larger 12-member Caricom group comprising
electoral officials and experts from eight countries did concurrent work. And,
by the way, the government of T&T was not responsible for financing these
activities.
The focus post-election, so far, has been
almost exclusively on the constituting of a new political administration,
attending to internal convulsions, and the challenge of making good on
extravagant promises.
In the process, barely concealed partisan
posturing has turned to both open revulsion and gratuitous applause - the
agenda for change consequently located along a spectrum of the impossible and
the eminently possible.
Thankfully, there are now independent
experts, with no distinguishable dogs in the recently completed race, to
dissect the details with data and evidence.
Meanwhile, as has been the case in the
past, international observers have come, they’re seen, and they have reported
(at least preliminarily) with some reminders and guidance on getting things
right the next time around.
I need to remind us of at least three
issues placed on the table for consideration by the Caricom Observer team of
2020 which closely align with the observations of the Commonwealth team of
2015, and again in 2025.
These include campaign finance reform,
digital transformation in matters related to elections, and accessibility
issues regarding the elderly and disabled.
It should not have taken COG Chair, Evarist
Bartolo of Malta to remind us of the 10-year-old recommendation to “prioritise
this process” of electoral campaign finance reform.
For, even at that time, the issue was
nothing new to us. The first report of a Joint Select Committee (JSC) appointed
in November 2014 to “propose a legislative framework to govern the financing of
election campaigns … ” had already been submitted in 2015.
Three elected MPs of 2025, on both sides of
the House, are among the signatories to that 10-year-old report which proposed,
among other things: “limits on private campaign financing of political parties
and candidates in order to promote fair competition during elections and reduce
incentives for corruption and undue influence in politics.”
The issue gained traction for some time,
including consideration of an appropriate “independent and professional
regulatory body” to monitor and consider sanctions for breaches.
The EBC was favourably considered by the
JSC, and an amendment to the Representation of the People Act was tabled in
parliament for debate in 2020. It included the idea of a National Election
Campaign Fund, in part to address the question of private funding and the
potential for the negative impacts identified by the 2015 JSC report.
It was suggested that most major actors
were supportive of the kinds of reforms that would not currently have us in a
state of confusion regarding the identities of “financiers” of a brief but
intense election campaign with visible spend in the millions and millions of
dollars.
I have suggested in the past that the main
beneficiaries of campaign spend should also be among the entities for which
mandatory disclosure is a requirement. These include both private and state
media – who almost all earn substantial revenues from electoral campaigns.
Meanwhile, we have political parties that
built their campaigns around the notion of transparency and accountability –
key attributes of responsible governance – and who now must give legislative
teeth to their stated commitment to such values.
It should not require impartial
international monitors to remind us of this. It should happen as a natural
outcome of political intent expressed on the political platform. Let’s see how
that goes.
