Friday, 28th October, 2011: New National Party Chairman and Former Deputy Prime Minister Senator the Honorable Gregory Bowen has called on the women of the NNP to join the other arms of the party in paying particular attention to the electoral process or risk suffering an unfair loss at the next General Elections. Senator Bowen made the challenge to the women during the recent Women’s Convention of the New National Party held at the St. Mark Secondary School.
The New National Party has taken issue with the legality of various aspects of the registration process and the possibility of lack of integrity of the new electronic registration system approved by the lower House of Parliament last week. To this end, meetings have been held with the Office of the Supervisor of Elections. Senator Bowen spoke of the importance of vigilance by the opposition with respect to the electoral list. The New National Party discussed with the Elections Office the potential for and safeguards against voter padding as the opportunities exist for both local and foreign electors to illegally register in a constituency in which they are not ordinarily resident.
The former Minister of Works stated that the NNP delegation to the meeting were told that there is nothing that the Electoral Office can do to prevent this problem since they were advised by the Attorney-General’s chambers that once a Grenadian Citizen presents his/her documents that person must be registered based on where the person says that he/she resides, whether true or false; and that any false registration can only be removed afterwards through the objection process. The officers from the Electoral Office also stated that they have been registering Grenadians living abroad as electors in various constituencies based on this advice.
The NNP Chairman also pointed to information being circulated in some quarters that it was the NNP who amended the law as it relates to the status of a Grenadian living abroad enabling them to come to Grenada and register without being ordinarily resident in a constituency for twelve months. Senator Bowen made reference to the Representation of the Peoples Act of 1993 section 17 of Act 35 which was passed under the previous NDC administration. He stated that under the Amended Section 6 of Act 19 of 2006 the redrafting simply made clearer the intended purpose of the previous 1993 Act and did not change the residential requirement for any class of electors , whether Grenadian or non-Grenadian Commonwealth citizens..
The NNP Senator further called on the Women of the NNP to be the vanguard in ensuring that the electoral list is properly canvassed and that the party’s supporters are all registered to vote as a matter of urgency.