Delroy Chuck
ELECTIONS ARE expensive. To participate in any form of national elections, even internal party selections, is a costly undertaking. Money plays an important part but sometimes it goes overboard.
In the recent People's National Party (PNP) presidential elections, the four candidates spent, between them, hundreds of millions of dollars to gain the support of just over 4,000 delegates. The influence of money, big money, in unfairly influencing elections cannot be underestimated.
In the 2002 General Elections, many hundreds of goats, chickens, pigs, etc., were given out just before the General Elections to unduly influence the electorate.
In a letter to The Gleaner editor on July 1, one letter writer chal-lenged my allegations that votes were bought for $1,000.00 in the recently concluded Eastern Westmoreland by-elections.
Well, I stand by my assertions. Moreover, buying elections and giving out money and material benefits before and around election day have become so normal that the practice is not now sufficiently condemned as unlawful, corrupt and contemptuous.
Winning elections must be a top priority for any political party. But, should a political party win at all costs? Well, chairman of the PNP, Bobby Pickersgill, has said that the party will do anything, which must include buying votes, to remain in power. And, to date, the PNP has done well at winning elections, even as it makes a total mess of government.
If, heaven forbid, it should win a fifth term, it will start the very next day to prepare to win the sixth term. Well, the experience speaks for itself.
'FEEL GOOD' FACTOR
Soon after winning the third and fourth terms in 1997 and 2002, the parliamentarians spoke openly that they were after the fourth and fifth terms respectively.
In June 2002, I knew the General Elections would soon be called when Prime Minister PJ Patterson told Parliament that the government could not find enough contractors to undertake the many contracts available. It became clear that the Government was about to engage in a massive amount of short-term expenditure to induce a temporary 'feel good' factor, which it did and, immediately, the opinion polls started to show a massive turnaround towards a PNP victory. I saw a similar experience in 1997.
Well, the real issue is when will the Jamaican people appreciate that they are being manipulated and used?
At the same time, it is for the Jamaica Labour Party to counter and inform the Jamaican people of how the Government is using the resources of the nation to mani-pulate the people.
CORRUPTION OF DEMOCRACY
Unfortunately, it is usually not known. I did not know that over 100,000 civil servants got massive pay increases in April 2002, until I saw my parliamentary pay increase and back pay in November 2002, when I reported that there had been a 103 per cent increase, which had already been given before the October 2002 General Elections.
Can anyone doubt that that pay increase did not influence the over 100,000 civil servants how to vote? After the October 2002 General Elections, the Government, according to Dr. Omar Davies, had to correct the 'run wid it' expenditure, and by June 2003, it was a complete wipe out in the local government elections for the JLP.
In truth, winning elections is about influencing voters, but when it becomes so blatantly obvious that Government resources are being used to unduly influence voters, it is no different from the direct buying of votes, which is a corruption of our democratic process.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Member of Parlia-ment. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
