Erica Virtue, Staff ReporterPolitical parties formed in the last 10 years could be digging deeper into their pockets to pay election day workers in the next general election, if Parliament accepts recommendations from the Electoral Advisory Committe (EAC) to set qualifications for funding.
The main recommendation is that parties which contest a general election must secure five per cent of the popular vote to qualify. If that criterion is accepted, new parties would be required to go it alone this election, secure the voting percentage in order to qualify at the next general polls.
The declaration, which is expected to be made before the next general election which Prime Minister P. J. Patterson said will be held before year end, would be beneficial to the National Democratic Move-ment (NDM), but not the United People's Party, the Republican Party or the Jamaica Alliance for National Unity.
EAC chairman, Professor Errol Miller, said the Legal Committee of the EAC is currently working on the proposals to go before Parliament.
"At the moment, it is not that the party is recognised or not recognised. It is where it qualifies to be included to get state funding. We (EAC) are saying that it must satisfy certain criteria to be able to get their people paid on election day," he said in an interview.
He said, currently as is written, it states how a party qualifies, but not how a party remains a beneficiary. Among the criteria for qualification is 50,000 signatures.
"I'm saying, it is the substantive thinking. And it is that to qualify and to maintain it would satisy the first two about membership, but it must get five per cent of the popular vote in a general election. And if it gets it, it qualifies, if it dosen't get it, it dosen't qualifiy," he made clear.
According to the EAC's Neville Graham, every candidate is entitled to have an indoor agent on election day. Traditionally these are persons are paid by the Electoral Office of Jamaica. The EOJ also pays the returning officers, presiding officers and poll clerks.
Asked if recommendation would make the NDM ineligible, he said, "We have not tried to address it to individual parties, but rather a standard declaration for all parties." He said the NDM was not represented on the EAC but the thinking was conveyed to its leadership.
"We have told them that this is the way we are thinking. We have not got a response as such. They have never come back to us with a contrary view as such."
Professor Miller also made it clear that, at the time when the thoughts were first put on the table the UPP had not been formed.
The EAC's position has received support from Jamaica Labour Party representative on the EAC, Senator Ryan Peralto.
Senator Peralto said it was his belief that political parties "cannot be defined as anybody that can get 50,000 signatures in a small country like Jamaica. You have to get a certain portion of the vote in a general election."
He said that in the case of the NDM "The recommendation of the EAC was that you have all these signatures to recognise you initially, but once you contest the elections, you must get at least one seat. But it is not in there (in the amendments). It was left out," Senator Peralto said.
