ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Feb 16, CMC – Grenadians go to the polls on Tuesday to elect a new government with the two main political parties confident that they have done enough to get the nod of the 62,000 voters to run the affairs of the island for the next five years.
Prime Minister Tillman Thomas is leading his National Democratic Congress (NDC) into the election, hoping to secure a similar margin of victory that it had in 2008 when it won 11 of the 15 seats and ended the 13 year rule of the New National Party (NNP) of Dr. Keith Mitchell.
But the NDC is not as united as it had been prior to the last general election. During its term in office, the government has been saddled with infighting among legislators leading to either the dismissal or resignation of key party officials such as tourism minister Peter David, who was later expelled from the party.
David was not the only gone getting the boot from the NDC. Former foreign affairs minister Karl Hood, who had filed a motion of no confidence against the government, as well as prominent trade unionist Chester Humphrey, who sat as a senator, were also showed the exit door.
Prime Minister Thomas has defended the expulsion of the 10 members accusing them of colluding with the opposition to bring down his government.
“Today they are openly colluding with the opposition in their vengeful bid to bring the government down and then thereafter to deliver votes to the opposition,” Thomas said, adding “those individuals who have gone down this road have self-destructed as politicians”.
While he has refused to predict the margin of victory for the NDC in the election, Prime Minister Thomas nonetheless has gone out of his way to indicate that the first seat to be declared for the party will be the one now held by Hood, who last week appeared on a platform of the NNP and endorsed it as the best party to lead Grenada at this time.
Some of the expelled NDC members have since formed the National United Front (NUF) under the leadership of Glynnis Roberts.
The party is putting up three candidates, but Mrs Roberts, who served in Thomas’ cabinet, believes the message to be sent out by the new party is what Grenadians have long been waiting on.
“The National United Front in fairness to us, we were only formed on November 27…so we have to make a presence and for persons who think we are spoilers they better think again,” she told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
“Grenadians, sometimes, we pretend that we don’t know what’s going on, but deep down inside we do and I am saying all that to say the message we are preaching is not one of spoiling. We are here to send a message to the Grenadian people that representation is something different from being a cabinet minister,” she added.
The elections will be monitored by observer teams from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Commonwealth and the Organization of American States (OAS).
The OAS has also been providing technical support to validate and verify the integrity of the new voter registration system.
At the end of a two week mission the OAS submitted a Report which concluded that “the introduction of biometric identification cards and an electronic voter database constitute significant improvements in voter security, relative to the processes that were previously in place.”
According to the report, “the house-to-house survey on voter registration attested to the integrity of the voter registration database.” It said in 98 percent of cases, there was “almost perfect correspondence between the place of residence provided by the citizen and the constituency in which that citizen was registered.”
The OAS team noted that “Grenada has significantly improved the legal framework governing the voter registration process,” adding that the 2011 Amendment to the Representation of the People Act “provides for the establishment of a permanent, centralized and computerized voter registration system, and establishes a more stringent identification requirement”.
Prime Minister Thomas said that the OAS report means that “Grenadians can now be guaranteed a free and fair election, free from the voter padding and irregularities pertaining to the electoral list of previous elections”.
Both the NDC and the NNP have released their manifestos with the NDC outlining new initiatives in various sectors of the economy and telling voters it is the best party to continue the socio-economic development of Grenada.
“We are the best party to build a nation that is free, a land of equal opportunity, a land of tolerance, fair play and prosperity,” Finance Minister Nazim Burke said at the launch of the manifesto, which indicates that Grenada’s future lies on five pillars of development including tourism, agri-business, energy and education.
