Dr. Preville
PRESS RELEASE - As you are aware, the Babonneau Constituency Branch of the United Workers Party (UWP) undertook what it called a “run off” on Tuesday, December 9, 2014, to choose a candidate which it will recommend to the Political Leader to represent the Babonneau Constituency in Saint Lucia’s next General Elections.
First of all, for the record, let me state that I do not believe that the Chairman of the Party should have been involved in a “run off” with an ordinary member of the party for the position of candidate while holding the position of Chairman of the party. This has never been done in the 50 year history of the Party. While there have been Chairmen who have served as candidate in the past, such persons have never had to engage in a contest with another member of the party for that position.
In the case where Stephenson King was Party Chairman and the Party, on the basis of a poll taken, concluded that Mr. King was the candidate most likely to win the Castries North seat as opposed to the endorsed candidate Ms. Cybelle Cenac, there was no “run off” for the seat. The Party simply took an executive decision on the matter to replace Ms. Cenac with Mr. King to enhance the Party’s chances of winning in the elections.
However, there was no endorsed candidate in Babonneau. If the Party felt that it saw no need for Mr. Joseph to resign as Party Chairman while still wishing to be a candidate, why can a poll of the constituency not be done? To go to the Constituency Branch and ask the members to choose between the Party Chairman and an ordinary member as a candidate is to put the branch in an untenable position.
This defies good governance and cannot be best organizational practice as the Party Chairman will have a natural advantage over the other candidate by virtue of the office that he holds in the Party. The party appears to have failed to understand these basic issues and it runs the risk of being perceived as an organization that does not understand organizational governance and hence will not be fit for national governance.
The record of the Tuesday meeting in question should show that I tried to draw these points to the attention of the branch in the presence of the Chairman in the hope that there would have been a rethink of the process that was being embarked upon. Notwithstanding, in the interest of Party unity I took part in what I knew was an inherently flawed process.
I must however indicate that based on how the voting was executed I cannot accept the results of the poll and request an immediate review of the conduct of the poll. The manner of the conduct of the poll was neither free nor was it secret balloting as I was made to understand that it would have been.
The voting process took place by each registered branch member going into a secluded place where their name appeared on a sheet of paper with two columns. The names of the voters were in the leftmost column while in the other column, the voter was required to put a “P” for Preville or “J” for Joseph.
This process resulted in at least two undesired outcomes. In the first instance, the requirement for secrecy was violated. As persons came in to vote, they were able to see how previous voters had voted. In the second instance, persons felt intimidated since they knew that how they had voted would have been known.
Some voters came to me afterwards and indicated that while they wanted to vote for me they were afraid that the rest of the branch members would know that they did not support Mr. Joseph and they would be victimized as a result.
It is to avoid this sort of fear and to allow branch members to exercise free choice that the process was supposed to be secret balloting. In the circumstances, I reject the results of the voting process and regard this process as null and void.
The matter is therefore has been referred to the Political Leader for urgent attention. I must also state that despite the confidential nature of this exercise the Party Branch has placed the outcome of the “run off” process in the media and accordingly I have to respond in kind.
It must be noted a number of branch members have indicated to me that they received extremely short notice, (on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 09, 2014) of the “run off” and hence while they wanted to participate in the process, they could not make the necessary arrangements due to prior commitments.
Further, the number of eligible branch members present was 27 out of a total of 74 members. I believe this low turnout does very little to instill confidence in the process that took place on Tuesday evening.
Finally, it seems to me that this entire conduct is one of victimization for having contested the political leadership of the party. I believe that rather than the party leadership continuing with such acts of victimization it should focus on securing a seat for the political leader and uniting the party to present it as a credible and via alternative to the governing SLP when the next general elections are called.