Political financing ready for reform
(CNS): The team of domestic observers has now published the full report on the 2021 General Elections and has made a list of recommendations, one of which is the need for “comprehensive reform” of campaign financing. The local team was appointed because the COVID-19 pandemic prevented independent overseas observers from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association being on-island. Head of Mission Hadleigh Roberts explained at a press briefing on Monday that the team wasn’t qualified to officially assert any form of official approval of the elections but were able to offer their opinion that they were held to a high standard.
Besides expressing confidence in the overall conduct of the elections, the observers made a number of recommendations for Parliament to consider but singled out campaign financing as one issue that they hope legislators will give priority to if they embark on any reform of the elections law.
“It is clear that political financing is ready for comprehensive reform,” Roberts said. “It is up to the new Parliament to decide in which direction and how far it wishes to go to promote transparency and accountability in campaign financing, considering both income and expenditure. We recommend that political financing becomes a priority in any review of the elections framework.”
Roberts suggested that the MPs’ Register of Interests should be more transparent and that a register of political donations received would be helpful. “A framework for lobbying and lobbyists would also seem appropriate,” he added, and suggested that consideration be given to third party financing as well as closing the loophole that enables unsuccessful candidates not to file their returns.
After this election just three candidates have failed to file their returns; all the others are available.
The PPM filed its election expense returns as “The Alliance”, even though this is not a registered party and the four Alliance candidates maintained their independence. In addition, although Alva Suckoo and Vincent Frederick took some time to declare their decision to run on the Alliance ticket, they have not provided their own independent financial details.
The Alliance recorded CI$27,000 as a donation from Austin Harris, who failed to retain his Prospect seat, but there are no further indications as to what other contributions were received from Alliance candidates who were not PPM members. The reporting of Harris’ money as a donation to the Alliance obscures the source of the funds and how it found its way into the PPM party coffers.
Dwayne Seymour, who was re-elected to Bodden Town East, remains in the opposition camp but has resisted officially joining the party. However, his expenditure and donations have been consolidated into “The Alliance” declaration.
In addition, there is no mention in the PPM/Alliance declaration of the donations, in both cash and services, which, according to public statements by Alden McLaughlin at an opposition press briefing, the party had given to other candidates during the campaign that are now in the PACT Government.
The observers confirmed that it was not part of their remit to examine the returns after the elections, but Roberts noted that there were questions surrounding the issue of party submissions. “We did not have the time or resources to look into that,” he said, though they had seen the summary of the finances.
Roberts said the report looks at the different political forces at work and the idea of teams versus parties and what defines them, but the Elections Act does not provide a framework for how parties are registered.
The observers found there was “a general appetite for improvement in several aspects of political life”. Suggestions on how to modernize the system include forming an independent political commission that could adjudicate on disputes and set guidelines for elections in the grey areas not covered by the law.
The mission also highlighted the secrecy of the ballot box as an important issue that should be addressed. Specifically, having a serial number on both a counterfoil and the ballot presents an opportunity for secrecy to be compromised, the observers found, though they said they have no reason to believe that it was used by anyone to observe someone’s vote.
But as the numbers are in red ink and have only four digits beginning with a zero, Roberts said that removing them would be a “positive step”. His colleague, Ian Whan Tong, added that the secrecy of the ballot is critical but if someone wanted to, they could trace a voter to a specific ballot under the current system.
“We never actually saw this; it is a theoretical concept but it is certainly possible,” he said. The observers were told that the reason for this is to enable verification that an elector’s vote has been cast and counted, which they said was reasonable, but they felt it was a small benefit compared to the risk that voter secrecy could be compromised.
While the observers have no power to impose or direct anything, Roberts said he hoped that Parliament would give consideration to their report, which includes 23 recommendations. To date, however, no government has acted on any of the recommendations put forward by the observer missions following the 2017 and 2013 elections, when the CPA began sending people to watch and offer advice on how to improve democracy.
The governor also said it was up to the elected members to decide what they do with the mission’s report, conclusions and recommendations.
“We have a strong reputation in the Cayman Islands for holding free and fair elections and I am delighted that this one was no different,” Governor Martyn Roper stated when he received the report. He said that in June the CPA virtual mission will produce their report. “It will be for the government and Parliament to consider how they plan to take forward both sets of recommendations,” Roper added.
See the full report in the CNS Library and watch the press conference on CIGTV below:
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Category: 2021 General Elections, Elections, Politics
After reading the Domestic Election Observers Report and Recommendations I advocate that the authorities consider strengthening the Elections Office by making it an Electoral Commission with investigative and prosecutorial powers or , alternatively establish an Office of the Political Ombudsman with the same investigative and prosecutorial powers.
Some of the practices outlined in the Observer’s Report bear the hallmarks of behaviour tinctured with questionable if not corrupt practice. Now is the ideal time to strengthen the regime and to ensure that the jurisdiction’s reputation for scrupulously free and fair elections remain unchallenged.
The amendments needed are numerous and long ovetdue. However those recommended by the Supervisors past and present will never be implemented as long as MP’s have to vote on them. The Elections law needs to be removed from their remit.
Why did we get pencils to mark X?
Some one could have erased all the ballots & changed the candidate selection.
Can we please just have a national vote so that every Caymanian voter can have a say in who gets elected?
If every voter had the balls to be connected publicly to their vote, I can assure you, the outcome would be different.
When nobody knows anything, those who count have all the power.
This has been going on for years.
I spent many nights as a kid watching the s”elections” unfold in the USA and the UK.
Not once did my life ever improve as a result of such exercises.
People, we are on our own. Make your play now for personal independence before you are chipped like an animal.
The report is a sham and merely a tick the box exercise to cover the Governor’s behind. The report and recommendations do not reflect the reality of the political process in the Caymans. The campaign financial returns including expenditures and financing of campaigns have been excluded from the report demonstrates this is all a big sham to pretend everything is fine and dandy down here. The pretense that everything is fine is precisely why these islands are doomed because no one in authority can afford for the public to know the truth. Protecting the lies is the soup du jour of the Caymans. This place is a banana republic without the bananas.
Plantain Republic.
Criminalize treating.
Try starting with prosecuting it.
All the work and look what we got.
Now tell us about PACT.
Funny that. It’s almost like legitimate criticisms (such as the observation about shadow alliances) are being glossed over.
Austin Harris has $27k free to donate to the PPM? Really? The highly successful Austin Harris whose employment experience prior to being an MLA was as the director of an entity XXXXX and then as a talk show host? Or is there some other multi millionaire Harris that I didn’t know about, who is apparently willing to donate to a political party he is not even a member off. ROTFLOL. Meantime if I try and deposit $10k into my bank account my bank wants a full account explanation as to the source of funds. Campaign financing needs reform? Talk about a statement of the obvious.
How about term limits too?
CNS you XXXd my comment about XXXX – its a matter of public record you know.
CNS: Sorry, it sounds probable but I couldn’t find anything online and don’t remember it.
A individual voter can be traced to the vote they cast? WTF!!! That’s the whole concept of the anonymity of the voting process out the window. That’s basics guys – how come no one has noticed this before, and how does it begin to be acceptable? You want to able to register whether a voter has used their vote you cross them off the electoral list when you issue them the ballot paper. practice. It’s hard enough as it is to get Caymanians to register to vote or participate – now you are telling them that someone can work out who they voted for ? SMH.
It’s theoretically possible but no one has direct access to the various pieces.
Highly improbable for someone to take the time and piece together the info.
Now what they did before the election was pretty important. They mixed the postal and mobile votes with the regular votes for the count. If an electoral district had 1 mobile voter and 3 candidates there is no way of keeping that result anonymous!
Simple solution would be randomising the ballot counterfoil numbers. No way then to hypothetically back-count someone’s vote. You are checked as a voter before you vote (necessary) and that each vote is counted can be checked (appropriate) but there is a disconnect inserted between the two processes. Without the expense of moving to electronic voting.