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The road Danville Walker must walk
Thursday, September 13, 2007
A former director of elections, Mr Noel Lee, after a barrage of criticisms, many of them unfounded, stepped down from the job, and all his years of hard-earned experience went with him. Lesotho snapped him up immediately. We hope that this will not happen in the case of Mr Danville Walker.
Elections in Jamaica have always produced extreme behaviour. It is hard to lose and the vanquished frantically seek to apportion blame or fashion conspiracy theories to soothe the agony of their defeat. We are seeing this in the latest case of the two disputed South East St Mary ballot boxes.
As far as some are concerned, the case is tried and closed and Mr Walker and the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) have been found guilty of some sort of undetermined wrongdoing.
We must stop this.
From all that we have heard on the issue so far, we see no wrongdoing on anyone's part. Moreover, we accept in good faith Mr Walker's explanation on Nationwide Radio of what took place.
The gist of his account is that the two boxes arrived at the EOJ without the keys which were apparently locked inside them. The boxes containing the ballots of election day workers, police and military who voted on August 28, 2007, were not counted. But there was an assumption that they were counted and when fatigued EOJ persons ended their work at 2:00 am, they inadvertently stored the uncounted boxes with the ones already counted.
We believe Mr Walker when he said that "no chicanery, no hanky panky...was involved". It was human error which could have happened to anyone in the stressed circumstances prevailing.
Importantly, nothing was done to favour anyone of the two candidates - Mr Harry Douglas of the People's National Party (PNP) or Mr Tarn Peralto of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
Admittedly, this was a serious blunder and we are pleased that the EOJ has accepted it as such. It is really sad that the integrity of the electoral system is now being questioned on the basis of two boxes out of thousands of boxes handled in this election in which thousands of people worked so hard.
Only the misguided still question the vast improvement in the electoral system under Danville Walker. In fact, the three observer groups - the Organisaton of American States (OAS); the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) - have all given the elections and the performance of the EOJ their vaunted stamp of approval.
Without concrete evidence of malfeasance, no one has the right to accuse Mr Walker or the EOJ as some are wont to do.
One clear example to us that the system works is the fact that the two boxes were found and identified as not counted. This suggests that there were sufficient checks and balances in the system. Otherwise, they could have gone missing, thus raising far more grave concerns about the electoral processes.
It is also noteworthy, and Mr Walker makes the point, that the system delivered the kind of result anticipated by the public opinion surveys that led up to the elections, an indication of its adequacy.
We urge Mr Walker and the EOJ not to be daunted. It is a hard road to travel but one they must walk.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
A former director of elections, Mr Noel Lee, after a barrage of criticisms, many of them unfounded, stepped down from the job, and all his years of hard-earned experience went with him. Lesotho snapped him up immediately. We hope that this will not happen in the case of Mr Danville Walker.
Elections in Jamaica have always produced extreme behaviour. It is hard to lose and the vanquished frantically seek to apportion blame or fashion conspiracy theories to soothe the agony of their defeat. We are seeing this in the latest case of the two disputed South East St Mary ballot boxes.
As far as some are concerned, the case is tried and closed and Mr Walker and the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) have been found guilty of some sort of undetermined wrongdoing.
We must stop this.
From all that we have heard on the issue so far, we see no wrongdoing on anyone's part. Moreover, we accept in good faith Mr Walker's explanation on Nationwide Radio of what took place.
The gist of his account is that the two boxes arrived at the EOJ without the keys which were apparently locked inside them. The boxes containing the ballots of election day workers, police and military who voted on August 28, 2007, were not counted. But there was an assumption that they were counted and when fatigued EOJ persons ended their work at 2:00 am, they inadvertently stored the uncounted boxes with the ones already counted.
We believe Mr Walker when he said that "no chicanery, no hanky panky...was involved". It was human error which could have happened to anyone in the stressed circumstances prevailing.
Importantly, nothing was done to favour anyone of the two candidates - Mr Harry Douglas of the People's National Party (PNP) or Mr Tarn Peralto of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
Admittedly, this was a serious blunder and we are pleased that the EOJ has accepted it as such. It is really sad that the integrity of the electoral system is now being questioned on the basis of two boxes out of thousands of boxes handled in this election in which thousands of people worked so hard.
Only the misguided still question the vast improvement in the electoral system under Danville Walker. In fact, the three observer groups - the Organisaton of American States (OAS); the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) - have all given the elections and the performance of the EOJ their vaunted stamp of approval.
Without concrete evidence of malfeasance, no one has the right to accuse Mr Walker or the EOJ as some are wont to do.
One clear example to us that the system works is the fact that the two boxes were found and identified as not counted. This suggests that there were sufficient checks and balances in the system. Otherwise, they could have gone missing, thus raising far more grave concerns about the electoral processes.
It is also noteworthy, and Mr Walker makes the point, that the system delivered the kind of result anticipated by the public opinion surveys that led up to the elections, an indication of its adequacy.
We urge Mr Walker and the EOJ not to be daunted. It is a hard road to travel but one they must walk.
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