Former director of elections should not run

by Rev Devon Dick

A FORMER director of elections should not run in representational politics having acted as chief electoral officer of the Representation of the People Act to ensure that elections are free and fair and free from fear.

It is not expected that an umpire in a cricket game between two teams will subsequently join one of the teams as a cricketer. Then, many of the past close calls and mistakes of that umpire will be called into question as resulting from biased orientation. Similarly, the mistakes, decisions, pronouncements and close calls of a director of elections in the past will be ascribed to bias towards the political party of choice.

A director of elections is to be impartial, fair and balanced. So serious is the expectation that a director of elections be unbiased, that he or she, along with the selected members of the Electoral Commission, is disqualified from voting at any election of a member to serve in the House of Representatives, or on the Council of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation, or any parish council. For many persons, the right to vote is sacrosanct and should not be denied to anyone except under extreme circumstances. Therefore, that a director of elections cannot vote is a sign that he or she should stay far from the fray of representational politics.

It would be a sad day in our history if the chief justice of Jamaica, who made a ruling in the Daryl Vaz foreign-allegiance case, should one day be a candidate for a political party. Or former governor general, Sir Kenneth Hall, deciding to run for the People's National Party or, one day down the road, Sir Patrick Allen, the incumbent governor general, deciding to run for the Jamaica Labour Party. Neither should we countenance chairman of the electoral commission, Professor Errol Miller, becoming a candidate one day. There are other persons who formerly held certain offices that should not enter representational politics, such as a director of public prosecutions, commissioner of police, and chief of defence staff. In other words, leaders who had significant authority with the independent management of the electoral process or made judicial rulings on electoral matters should not later on enter representational politics.

It should not happen

Apparently, there is no law to prevent such persons from running as a candidate of a political party, but by convention, it should not happen. And well-thinking Jamaicans should support such a convention. Some things should not necessarily become a law, but by convention, it should be accepted.

A former director of elections can become a governor general, because the office calls for persons who are impartial and civic minded and knowledgeable about Jamaican life, conventions and constitution. A former director of elections could become custos or a selected member of the Electoral Commission. A former director of elections should be seen as an elder statesman, above perceiving politics through one lens only. It has nothing to do with representational politics being corrupt or that the person will become corrupt, but more to do with expectations, perceptions and common sense.

The other problem with a former director of elections running in representational politics is that it has the potential to make the job of the present director of elections more difficult. It could set back the gains under the electoral process. From now, every mistake the director of elections makes will be magnified and motives of political bias ascribed. Every decision will be scrutinised for perceived favouritism for one political party or another.

As we go forward, let the convention be that a former director of elections should not run in representational politics.

Rev Devon Dick is pastor of the Boulevard Baptist Church in St Andrew. Comments columns@gleanerjm.com.