Tag Archives: Vote Buying

Just Like Freundel Stuart, Arthur Holder is WRONG–Don’t Take the Money!

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Submitted by DAVID A. COMISSIONG, Citizen of Barbados

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

– Matthew, Chapter 6, Verse 13)

WHETHER  THE  ADVICE to “take the money” comes from the Democratic Labour Party’s Freundel Stuart or from the Barbados Labour Party’s Arthur Holder it is WRONG — ethically, morally, politically and legally WRONG !

It would seem that the BLP’s Arthur Holder just couldn’t help himself. In spite of the national tongue lashing that Prime Minister Stuart received when he urged Barbadians to “take the money” offered by would-be vote buyers, Arthur Holder – the BLP candidate for St Michael Central — similarly discredited himself by following in Stuart’s footsteps and advising residents of the working class district of Bush Hall to accept any money offered to them by persons attempting to buy votes during the upcoming Election.

I would like to appeal to all Barbadians who possess a sense of patriotic concern for their country to adopt an attitude of zero tolerance to any notion that our people should in any way accommodate vote buying and selling, and to vehemently denounce any person who advances such a notion.

In light of Arthur Holder’s recent foray into political and ethical backwardness, I can only repeat the advice that I tried to give to my fellow citizens a few weeks ago when no less a personage than the Prime Minister of Barbados urged the entire country to “take the money”.

I said then and I say again — “don’t take the money” — because if you take the money you will be devaluing yourself as a human being !

Please recall that back in the 19th and 18th centuries rich white people were actually buying and selling our ancestors as if they were mere animals or things. Why then would we want to allow anyone to convince us to reduce ourselves to so low a moral level that — once again — people with money are made to feel that we are for sale?

I also said then and I say again –“don’t take the money” — because it is against the Law !

Surely, just like Freundel Stuart, Arthur Holder  must know that the citizens of Barbados CANNOT “take the money” without breaking the Law of the land as set out in Section 6 of the Elections Offences And Controversies Act as follows :-

(1) A person is guilty of a corrupt practice who is guilty of bribery.

 

 

  (2) A person is guilty of bribery who, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf

 

 

       (a) gives any money…..to any elector or to …any other person on behalf of any elector…in order to induce any elector to                vote or refrain from voting ;

 

 

   (5) Any elector is guilty of bribery who, before or during an election, directly or indirectly by himself or by any other person on       his behalf, receives, agrees to receive, or contracts for any money, gift, loan, or valuable consideration…for voting or agreeing     to vote or for refraining or agreeing to refrain from voting.

So, according to the Election Offences And Controversies Act both the buyer of the vote and the seller of the vote are guilty of having committed an illegal “corrupt practice”, and are liable on conviction to imprisonment for a period of six months.

And finally, as I said a month ago, I now  maintain :–“Don’t take the money” — because if you do take the money you will be helping to destroy your own country!

The insidious and growing practice of “vote buying” has already resulted in thousands of young (and not so young) Barbadians forming the impression that many, if not most, politicians –including some men and women who get elected to Parliament and some of those who hold ministerial office — are no more than tawdry hustlers and con-men.

In other words, the people of our country are already rapidly losing respect for the men and women who are supposed to be their national leaders. And when a critical mass of a population lose respect for the men, women, and institutions that are supposed to provide national leadership, the nation is lost !

Furthermore, the vile practice of “vote buying” is gradually and sedulously stripping many of our youth of their idealism and moral values, and is also threatening to subvert the integrity of our electoral system, and by extension, our entire system of governance.

My fellow Barbadians, do not permit ANYONE to persuade you to become an accomplice in the destruction of your own native land. Always, set out to  do the right and moral thing!

 

 

‘Vote Buying’ Tactic!

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This week Barbadians were treated with the news that the government released five million dollars to the account of the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA) to settle income tax returns. And that an additional five million dollars will be disbursed in the coming days. If public comment is to be believed, outstanding returns go back many years.

Clearly the government- like any citizen- has a responsibility to honour financial commitments in a timely manner. The minister of finance has offered the explanation that government’s cashflow is the reason for the delay issuing income tax rebates.

The blogmaster is happy for those Barbadians who will be FINALLY receiving tax returns.

What piques the curious mind of the blogmaster however is why now. Clearly the saying that ‘timing is everything’ appears to ring true in the scenario unraveling in the light of day.  The idea the Minster of Finance and Cabinet may have orchestrated the payment of outstanding tax returns days before Prime Minister Freundel Stuart will be forced by law to declare the date of the general election – or have it done for him – is mindboggling. Not because it is to be expected from politicians, after all, political parties are in business to win elections. Are we not an intelligent people endowed with basic reasoning and observation skills to appreciate the rush to settle outstanding monies due to Barbadians? Does anyone care to question the political morality of the Cabinet of Barbados?

The blogmaster will be following the debate we hope this matter will generate in the coming days as a barometer to measure the  ‘citizen maturity’ levels in the Barbados space.   The media- traditional media to be clear- has a role to play because we know by its track record the Fifth Estate will continue to play the leadership role by sharing unfettered perspectives on all issues. The role of the Fifth Column will be vital to shore up the political efficacy which has move to a slow drip to a free flowing leak in the last decade.

What the blogmaster found appalling is Commissioner of the Barbados Revenue Authority Margaret Sivers being coopted by the government to issue a public statement on the matter.  This is a government with a legacy that will be defined by stealth in its communication strategy.   The BRA as far as we recall has a public relations officer in its employ if BRA’s management was minded to publicize the boost to its cashflow.

We are tired already.

Give us a Rh break!

The Jeff Cumberbatch Column – An Ineffective Law

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Jeff Cumberbatch – Chairman of the FTC and Deputy Dean, Law Faculty, UWI, Cave Hill

As the date of the next general election in this country draws nearer, many people are expressing their indignation that the outcome in one or two of the constituencies might be determined not by the inherent worth of the candidate nor by the likely value of his or her parliamentary contribution to the common weal, but, to put it crudely, by the amount of votes the candidate is able to acquire by the purchase of an elector’s franchise for filthy lucre.

It would be difficult to find anyone who is in support of this mode of electioneering [I have already commented on it in this space under the self-explanatory title, The franchise is not a commodity, there have been numerous letters to the editor in both newspapers and some years ago, a number of concerned businessmen spoke out publicly as a group against the practice.

Further, in the early hours of the day following the 2013 general election both the current Prime Minister and Attorney-General railed against flagrant instances of this misconduct that they had perceived during the hours of the election.

What is peculiar in this context is that there already exists legislation that prohibits and criminalizes this form of conduct as a corrupt practice. This law has been in existence for the past forty-seven years in the form of the Election Offences and Controversies Act, Cap. 3 of the Laws of Barbados. What is even more alarming is that the penalties provided by the Act for this corrupt practice are suitably dissuasive. According to section 52-

Where, on the trial of an election petition, it is proved to the satisfaction of the Election Court that any corrupt practice was committed by or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate at the election, the report of the Election Court under section 46 shall state that the candidate proved guilty of that corrupt practice is personally guilty of that corrupt practice and where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Election Court that any illegal practice was committed by or with the knowledge and consent of any candidate at the election, the said report shall state that the candidate proved guilty of that illegal practice is personally guilty of that illegal practice.

And section 54 –Where a candidate who has been elected is reported by the Election Court [to be] personally guilty or guilty by his election agent of any corrupt or illegal practice his election shall be void.

There is further similar provision in section 55 of the statute. Still, despite these clear provisions and their significantly negative consequences for the offender, the impugned practice seems likely to continue for the upcoming general election.

In a not unconnected context, there is a popular, although sadly misinformed, view that the local defamation law is “archaic” (in fact it is one of the more informed in the region, although cribbed by local culture, self-censorship and judicial restraint). This misperception is based partly on the absence in local law of the concept of the public figure that is able to maintain an action for defamation in a circumstance only where it is possible to establish malice on the part of the publisher of the allegedly defamatory imputation. It is also derived from or attributed to the not unreasonable assumption that since any reform is most likely to be legislative rather than judicial, the ones responsible for amending the law and thereby increasing the freedom of expression enjoyed by the people are the very ones that would be likely to suffer most from such an amendment, given the high incidence of lawsuits for defamation by politicians in the region. This catch-22 circumstance does not augur well for any sooner reform in that area.

It would be churlish to make the leap of logic that would assume that a similar legislative reluctance exists in the context of the law concerning transactional voting. In the first place, as argued above, the law is already there. Second, it is not the members of Parliament themselves that are responsible for its enforcement. The question begs asking therefore, why has this law proven ineffective over such a long period despite its clear provision for liability and its dissuasive sanctions?

In an article published in 1981 in Volume 15 of the Valparaiso Law Review, Anthony Allot, a Professor of African Law at the University of London, argued that while the general test of effectiveness of a law is to see how far it realizes its objectives and fulfills its purpose, this is subject to the actuality that as the law acquires a history those who apply it, follow it or disregard it re-shape both the law and its purposes to correspond to their power and their influence. As he sees it, compliance with a law is more probable if the pattern of behaviour prescribed by the law corresponds to, or at least does not fundamentally contradict, the pre-existing behavioural patterns in the society.

I am not old enough to write with any degree of authority as to the electoral campaign culture that existed in 1971 when this statute was enacted, but I have heard enough of the rumours of the corned-beef-and-biscuits treating of those days to suspect that this legislation at the time of its enactment would have conflicted with the pre-existing behavioural patterns in the society as Allot suggests.

After all, much as we claim to abhor the notion of a cash payment being utilized as the consideration for the elector exercising his or her franchise in the payer’s favour, the statute does not seek to restrict the nature of the offending consideration to cash or indeed any particular form; thus the fabled offer of corned-beef-and-biscuits of yore would have satisfied the test for a corrupt practice. It is urged that this politico-cultural trait, when combined with the populist hagiolatry of the politician as less of an agent or representative than as an facilitator of one’s economic advancement, the absence of any particular in the statute as to the time when the treating should occur and, perhaps most important, the difficulty of establishing the commission of the offence all serve to render the law proscribing vote-buying as a mere toothless injunction clearly at odds with the national ethos. In a word, ineffective.

A Heather Cole Column – Warfare Vs. Entertainment

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Heather Cole

When I was a child,
I spake as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child: but when I became a man,
I put away childish things.
– 1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I loved the silly season not because it made me think earnestly about the persons and government in whom my mother was entrusting my future but for the music, the lyrics of songs, the political banter, the late nights attending political meeting, listening to things I did not understand; the funny things the candidates said, the gossip they started about one another and the fanfare of wearing red or blue and watching the spectacle of a well-practiced speech delivered by someone who turned up at our house asking for my mother’s vote.

Somehow we all got caught up in this exercise. It brought as much anticipation as Christmas. We all enjoyed it’s fanfare until the big day came with its nervous wait to determine our fate. However for the poor it always brought the same fate; nothing changed. The cycle continued of the rich becoming richer; the poor remaining poor and not laying eyes upon the middleman until five years later when he greeted you as if you parted yesterday.

Now that I am grown and uniquely interested in the well-being of all Barbadians, I now question what we have been doing all along.

I have come to realize how gullible a people we really are. By now it must be a weakness because we have fallen for the same ploy of broken promises season after season without redress. It appears that we enjoy being promised punishment. It is quite like the Stockholm syndrome which occurs after a relationship has been established with one’s captors. Slavery has really done us wrong as it seems that we have taken the deficiency of a once a year entertainment given to us by the masters way too far. Why do we need to profess it at every opportunity we get?

On Sunday March 7, 1965, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and about 600 persons marched. It was not an act to entertain but the last resort, a demonstration or protest that was akin to a riot or a slave revolt if it had not occurred in 1965. It was a protest that raised the conscience of a nation and obtained civil rights for black people. There is a lot for us to learn from the sobriety of this protest.

The social, economic and civil rights of all Barbadians have been under threat for the past 10 years. It is time for us to face the election season with sobriety. The upcoming elections must be a catalyst for serious thought and change because the spectre of entertainment has done us no good on raising the conscience of our nation.

If we were taught that a general election was the time for the people to force change when the mandate given by them was not accomplished, we would embrace the concept of warfare. If we as a nation were under constant attack and our situation one of duress, pain, hopelessness, suffering and misery and we found a chance to break free but there had to be a fight, our minds would be focused on the concept of warfare; the struggle to achieve a desired outcome.

No soldier going to war fraternizes with the enemy; the person who brings pain suffering and agony as that would be treason. Therefore no amount of money offered should cause a voter to sell their vote when there will only be fleeting gratification from the exercise and misery in the long run. Some sold their vote and now realize that it was not worth the day to day struggle to survive today. Others have also realized that they allowed their representative to change the economic climate which contributed to loss of their job, home, savings and car. They have all realized that they were tricked by hustlers for a hundred dollar bill, a cell-phone, i-pad, TV, fridge or stove. We have to learn to see beyond this trickery.

It defies logic to believe that a man can bribe his prospective boss, but it happened in Barbados. It is difficult to understand why Barbadians can allow representatives of political parties whom they will employ to bribe them. Perhaps the people do not understand the power that they possess. Any man who buys your vote will never have your interest at heart, only his. Never give up your right to vote freely and fairly.

This silly season is distinctly different as the country has never been in such social, economic and environmental difficulty before. Never have we had such scoundrels in Parliament who have bought not only the liberty of the franchise, but destroyed the economic well-being of the country and the social well-being of the people. Knowing full well what the sitting party did and will do the retain power. Anyone who thinks that this election is not a war is in denial. Perhaps all of the opposition parties must change their strategies and adopt the philosophy of warfare. The Art of War is a good read.

There is enough evidence on corruption alone to be used against the Stuart Administration. Then there is mismanagement of the economy, and then there are the scandals like the Cahill Gasification Plant, The Hilton Hotel, The Sewage on the South Coast and one can go on and on. The point that I am trying to make is that no one should leave your political meeting feeling happy and dancing or on the fence not knowing who to vote for. They should be so enraged that the ONLY choice they would have is to vote for an opposition party.

Hopefully, when the next history book is written of Barbados, it will note that the period leading up to general elections in the year 2018 was significantly different than in previous election years; that the concept of entertainment was put away and replaced with the sobriety of warfare in order to extract what was duly required not only for the preservation of the socio and economic well-being of those alive then but also for future generations.

TIME TO LOCK UP VOTE BUYERS

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Submitted by David Comissiong, President, Clement Payne Movement

“Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith and the senior officers of the Royal Barbados Police Force should be putting together a number of motorized flying squads”

The exchange of hundred dollar bills for votes has now become a standard practice in Barbadian general elections, and if this corrupt practice is not brought to an end it will eventually totally destroy the public or civic life of our nation!

Over the past two General Elections (2008 and 2013) a distinct practice has emerged in which politicians and their henchmen descend upon working-class communities and seek to bribe electors – particularly young men and women – with hundred dollar bills.

This corrupt practice has resulted in thousands of young Barbadians forming the impression that many, if not most, politicians – including some men and women who get elected to Parliament and some of those who go on to hold ministerial office – are no more than tawdry hustlers and con-men!

In other words, the people of our country are rapidly losing respect for the men and women who are supposed to be their national leaders. And when a critical mass of a population lose respect for the men , women and institutions that are supposed to provide national leadership, the nation is lost!

Furthermore, the vile practice of vote buying is gradually and sedulously stripping many of our youth of their idealism and moral values, and is also threatening to subvert the integrity of our electoral system , and by extension, our entire system of governance.

And so, the prevention of vote buying must now be viewed as a national priority!

Barbados does have an Election Offences And Controversies Act (Chapter 3 of the Laws of Barbados), which proscribes vote buying and deems it to be a “corrupt practice”. Indeed, Section 6 of the Election Offences and Controversies Act provides as follows : –

    1) A person is guilty of a corrupt practice who is guilty of bribery.

(2) A person is guilty of bribery who, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf

(a) gives any money….. to any elector or to…any other person on behalf of any elector…in order to induce any elector to vote or refrain from voting ;

(5) Any elector is guilty of bribery who, before or during an election, directly or indirectly by himself or by any       other person on his behalf, receives, agrees to receive, or contracts for any money, gift, loan, or valuable consideration…for voting or agreeing to vote or for refraining or agreeing to refrain from voting

So, according to the Election Offences and Controversies Act both the buyer of the vote and the seller of the vote are guilty of having committed a “corrupt practice”.

Section 27 (1) of the Election Offences and Controversies Act then goes on to provide that ” a person guilty of a corrupt practice, other than personation, is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for six months or to a fine of five hundred dollars or both”.

Commission of the corrupt practice of “bribery” also has consequences for the election candidate who instigated and profited from it. The Act stipulates that such a candidate may have votes taken away from his tally, and – in certain circumstances – may  be deprived of a seat that he “won”.

Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith and the senior officers of the Royal Barbados Police Force should be putting together a number of motorized “flying squads” in marked and unmarked Police vehicles to carry out rapid anti-vote buying surveillance missions in all relevant communities during the last week of campaigning and on Polling Day in particular.

It is time that we lock up a few of these vote buyers !

Do Barbadians Care About Political Campaign Reform?

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electionIn a document titled ‘Getting there on time:notes on the regulation of campaign finance in Latin America the author in great detail outlines issues of campaign finance our region continues to be challenged. The BU household hardly expects the BU family to read the 122 page document although we highly recommend it.

The unexpected annoucement recently by Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite that the government has de-prioritized the implementation of anti corruption legislation should be of concern to civic minded Barbadians. By sharing a few excerpts from the document  we hope to explain why the problem just got even bigger.

The opening paragraph of the document:

The relation between money and politics has come to be one of the great problems of democratic government’. It is with this sentence that James Kerr Pollock began his pioneer volume on practices of political financing in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, published in 1932. This assertion, as well as his appeal to public opinion to understand that ‘[h]ealthy political life is not possible as long as the use of money is unrestrained’, are truer today than in Pollock’s own time (1932: 328). The spread of democracy, the growing complexity of electoral processes, and the awareness of the risks posed by corruption to the viability of democracies have placed the financing of political activity at the center of the public debate worldwide. The issue has become global and urgent.
Take note that the issue of money and politics is an age old problem and one any responsible government AND citizenry must be interested in managing. To use the author’s words, “while democracy has no price, it does have an operating cost (Griner and Zovatto, 2004: 298)“.
Private financing is a legitimate and necessary tool for political parties and their candidates, with both its virtues and its dangers. Among the former, it allows political parties to engage more with society. Nonetheless, the possibility of raising private funds to finance political activities opens up an array of considerable risks to democracy. The first and most serious of these is the possibility of using money from criminal or illegal activities for political ends.
In Barbados citizens speculate about the source of funds used to finance political campaigns. What we know is that those who pay the piper gets to play the tune. The role that Leroy Parris and CLICO Barbados played to bankroll the Democratic Labour Party by the  Bjerkham connection for example is evidence of how government can be influenced. In the 2013 general election many questions were asked about the source of funding of the Barbados Labour Party to fund a glossy advertising campaign. The author reflects on page 20 – that private contributions can undermine the public interest and, in extreme cases, ‘privatize’ decison-making by public officials. The foregoing easily explains why the Bjerkham Maloney interest has featured prominently in the decison-making of the Fruendel Stuart government.
The effects of faulty campaign finance regulation can be as negative as the absence of regulation, because any effort to regulate tends to raise expectations that new rules will at least be capable of moderating the worst abuses. Failed reforms leave behind a sense of disillusion and cynicism and become a barrier to new regulatory efforts.
It has become increasingly evident in the last decade that a significant number of Barbadians have become disillusioned by the existing system of elective politics. There have been growing calls for a third party, the need to implement transparency legislation, the power of the people to recall elected candidates and others. It should be very clear given the rise of the political class that this group will defend its territory to the last man standing. The fact that it is a group comprised of lawyers in the main describes a very challenging situation the region finds itself.
This category includes those instruments that regulate the flow of economic resources to political activities, both by controlling and prohibiting the use of certain sources of financing (‘negative’ or ‘passive’ regulations) and by stimulating the use of other sources (‘positive’ or ‘active’ regulations). The more widespread controls apply, as one would expect, to private political donations. Almost all democracies restrict the use of at least some types of private donations, albeit with very uneven levels of intensity. While some countries (Greece, for example) simply impose a cap on contributions, most modern democracies place an absolute prohibition on the use of certain sources of financing. The limits on individual contributions range from very low amounts in some countries to approximately USD 200,000 per year in Japan. The prohibitions, for their part, generally pertain to foreign donations—prohibited in dozens of countries—and certain types of corporate donations, typically those from state enterprises or firms that benefit from contracts or licenses granted by the state.
If we listen to those who should know there is existing legislation in Barbados that needs to be enforced. The fact that laws on the books are not enforced raises another worrying issue of weak governance. The demise of the pan Caribbean company CLICO is ample evidence the challenge of poor governance is a regional one.
Unfortunately the government of Barbados has slammed the door on addressing the issue of campaign financing. Of greater concern is whether Barbadians care.
The full text of the document can be read at the following link.

Donville Inniss’ Response to Vote Buying by Politicians

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Posted by Artaxeres to the Well Done Freundel blog

It seems as though once again Donville consumed too much alcohol or mind altering substances at Friday and Saturday night karaoke sessions, which puts him in the frame of mind to talk shiite at the DLP Sunday evening constituency branch meetings.

The suggestion from three businessmen to implement laws forbidding politicians from bribing people to vote for them, seems to have brought condemnation from “The Don”. He is reported as having said, “You need to strongly, not subliminally, but boldly state that any businessman who provides money to a politician to buy votes should also be locked up and heavily punished.”

But we all know Donville is a man who loves the attention he receives from the press, as well as constantly contradicting Stuart, or implying that he’s a liar.

Continue reading →

Vote Buying and Campaign Financing

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Prime Minister Freundel Stuart
Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite
Commissioner of Police Tyrone Griffith and the senior officers of the Royal Barbados Police Force should be putting together a number of motorized “flying squads”

On the 26 January 2008 BU posted the following blog in response to questions about voting irregularities reported in Deacons on election day,  the constituency of St. Michael North West seat was contested between Chris Sinckler and Clyde Mascoll. Sinckler won by 340 votes. Continue reading →

2013 General Elections Follow-up – Campaign Financing

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Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group
Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart admitted he witnessed voting irregularities

Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart admitted he witnessed voting irregularities

In reference to the current debate about corporate financing of the BLP and DLP, The Mahogany Coconut Group quotes from an article, it submitted to, and was published by BU shortly after the last (2013) General Elections

“ While we shout from the roof tops about what took place on elections day, we bury our heads in the proverbial sand, by refusing to ask one simple question: How did the two political parties, both claiming to be rather financially impoverished, raise a conservative estimate of over twenty million dollars to pour into a three week campaign? We ask Dale Marshall (BLP) to tell us about the successful “cake sales and car washes” that raised their money. We ask Ronald Jones (DLP) to tell us more about the “$500 here and there” that was given to his party by well wishers. Let’s face it; elections are now big business and the corporate shadows are well entrenched in both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party.

Anybody who believes that car washes, cake sales and a five hundred dollar donation here and there, can raise this large amount of money, needs to seriously wake up from his/her  slumber!

The truth is that deals are common place in our politics and state agencies are used to distribute largesse. There is a sophisticated corruption sanctioned by both parties. We hear about consultants and contractors being given work for which they are unqualified. We should pause and thank the majority of our civil servants who are honest, hardworking and not corrupt, like some found in other countries.”

Full article link : http://mahoganycoconut.blogspot.com/2013/02/barbados-elections-2013-and-cash.html

Campaign Finance Reform Needed

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Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group
How did two poor political parties raised millions to fund a three week political campaign?

How did two poor political parties raised millions to fund a three week political campaign?

The Mahogany Coconut Group submits that the real vote buying is in the upper echelons of our society. What we witnessed on Election Day was some voters getting cash, cell phones, IPods and a bill paid here and there. The real votes were bought by those shadows- black and white, – who Dr. Don Blackman referred to a few decades ago! Of course Dr. Blackman talked only about white shadows but the corporate landscape has dramatically changed over the years – we now have shadows of all colors and ethnicities.

While we shout from the roof tops about what took place on elections day, we bury our heads in the proverbial sand, by refusing to ask one simple question: How did the two political parties, both claiming to be rather financially impoverished, raise a conservative estimate of over twenty million dollars to pour into a three week campaign? We ask Dale Marshall (BLP) to tell us about the successful “cake sales and car washes” that raised their money. We ask Ronald Jones (DLP) to tell us more about the “$500 here and there” that was given to his party by well wishers. Let’s face it; elections are now big business and the corporate shadows are well entrenched in both the Barbados Labour Party and the Democratic Labour Party.

Anybody who believes that car washes, cake sales and a five hundred dollar donation here and there, can raise this large amount of money, needs to seriously wake up from his/her slumber!

Continue reading →

Vote Buying on the Rise in Barbados

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Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart said he witnessed it.

Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart said he witnessed it.

The electoral system is one which Barbadians have been proud of until recent general elections.  The cries have been getting louder and louder from the public that votes have been bought on election day. Yes we have had political candidates in the past wooing the public with “corn beef and biscuits” at the village shop but that is where it ended. How big is the problem of vote buying in Barbados?

We have a situation in Barbados where both political parties appear to be guilty of the practice of throwing cash and items around to garner support. Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart could hardly post general election to inform the public he witnessed vote buying on election day. His revelation was followed by a similar statement from an equally indignant Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite after his swearing in session at Government House.  Today in the news general secretary of the Democratic Labour Party George Pilgrim stated he had advised members of the public who witnessed vote buying on election day to call the police. One wonders if the Prime Minister called the police when he saw what he saw.

Members of the BU family who were around in 2008 may recall similar concerns raised about vote buying. BU actually posted a blog – Activities In The Farm On Election Day. What is unfathomable is that with all the cash, iPods,watches, herb that was reported to have been distributed on election day, there was only ONE arrest made by the police.

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The Business Of The Political Campaign And Its Financing

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Submitted by Eli Davis

Peter Wickham recently sacked from the CBC TV8 has been at the forefront of calling for political campaign reform in Barbados

Every so often I get the urge to contribute (?) a comment to this forum that I believe merits attention. This time around it is that of The Business of the Political Campaign and its Financing. It is an issue that is basic in determining the relevance of our electoral process and, as a result of the moneyed interests involved, is the most difficult of topics to have discussed in public.

Few people would know that a study on this topic was commissioned by the OAS back in 2003 and resulted in a report that was published about three years later. My concern with the entire topic has to do with whether or not it is an appropriate topic for consideration in our current political environment that has demonstrated little in the furtherance of the long term viability of our peoples and nation states.

Basically, in my view anyway, a political party is simply an (legal?) entity that seeks to gain administrative control over the funds in the Treasury, and that’s it. How these are spent and on whom form the essence of the business of the party. The business requires that the populace be deceived into supporting the party campaign and once successful, that control over the funds be maintained for as long as possible.

Continue reading →