IT seems that every time the St Lucia Labour Party loses a general election it resorts to crying foul and attacking the integrity of the result. This week, the quiet that had prevailed in the country following the general elections a month ago was interrupted by the resurgence of the former Prime Minister alleging “massive purchasing of votes”, in short bribery, on June 6.
Dr. Anthony claims that his party drew the matter to the attention of the Electoral Commission and the police. He has identified persons whom he claimed participated in this practice. Interestingly, nowhere in the statements that have been published and attributed to Dr. Anthony, was he reported to have said categorically that the winners of the poll, the United Workers Party had been engaged in vote buying. The inference, however, is clear.
Dr. Anthony has also said he does not believe or accept that the loss of his party is explained by the purchasing of votes, but he believes it influenced the final outcome in some marginal constituencies.
Let’s be frank about this. Allegations of vote buying in elections in St Lucia are as old as the hills. The St Lucia Labour Party has also itself been so accused, Indeed, in this most recent election such charges were made against some of its candidates as well. But even with people allegedly flashing dollar bills around and making statements about the source of their funds, it is still all hearsay. Until now, maybe, given Dr. Anthony’s claim of supporting “evidence”
In the past voters have been “bought” with alcoholic drinks, jobs, food, building materials, domestic supplies etc. and allegations of such practices as far as we are aware, have been levelled at both of the main political parties. This may explain why public responses to Anthony’s present claims have been so overwhelmingly dismissive by the general public. The feeling is that the former SLP leader is crying foul, simply because he lost and was outdone by his opponents.
Do the last minute projects instituted by Dr. Anthony’s government before the recent elections that created jobs for many would-be voters —and there were many of them—also rise to the standard of bribery or vote-buying? Or are we only concerned with the alleged use of money? How do we define the practice of political parties paying huge sums of money or promising positions to prospective candidates to get them to run on their slates?
As far as influencing the final outcome goes, do we have evidence that persons paid to vote a particular way, actually do so? What would the law say about a person who is paid to do a particular deed, then turns around and does something else? This year all kinds of stories have been floating around even by people who claimed that they took money that was being offered to support a particular candidate, then voted the other way.
Although there are laws in St Lucia against the buying of votes at election time, no one has ever been so convicted. Still we believe Dr. Anthony should be given a platform to air his grievances so that action can be taken to ensure that such practices come to a halt. There will, most likely, be other people who would want to make use of that platform as well to tell their own stories, because as we said before, claims of vote buying at election time are not new.
Dr. Anthony believes a start should be made to expose those who he said, corrupted the political process on election day. He has called for the naming of those persons and providing the evidence of “their corrupt acts and behaviour”. We look forward to seeing that process followed through, because we believe there are a whole range of issues that ought to be investigated, some many years old, in the interest of fairness.
Finally everyone now knows why the St Lucia Labour Party lost these elections and it has nothing to do with buying of votes. The results indicated a massive swing against the Labour Party islandwide which was evident in every single constituency without exception. It’s what happens when the people have had enough of a government and want to see its back.