ONE OF the happy outcomes from Wednesday's General Election was the performance of the electoral machinery. For this the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) and the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) deserve the highest commendation; and this has been forthcoming from both CAFFE, the local observer group, and the delegation from the Carter Center.
The transformation will be appreciated more readily by the public with reminders of the appalling state of readiness displayed in the 1997 General Election.
We had occasion after that exercise in December to write scathingly of the scandalous failure of the EAC at that time to put in place the appropriate organisation and equipment; most voters had no ID cards and many polling stations had no 'black books' with the demographic data to facilitate identification of voters. We felt at that time that the political nominees on the Committee were unhelpful. The political representation has since been reduced to one voting nominee for each of the two major parties.
Weeks before this week's election Director of Elections Danville Walker signalled that much had changed. Equipment, staffing, training and a new attitude were in place and under professional management.
The political leaders have praised the performance; and CAFFE, which had observers posted islandwide, told a press briefing yesterday that despite some incidents of violence and intimidation, the polling went relatively smoothly.
According to Dr. Lloyd Barnett, the CAFFE chairman, 98 per cent of polling stations opened on time. Significantly, problems of disruption reported to CAFFE observers in practically all cases were caused by political activists.
As we have noted in another context, much of the problems in elections derive from lower level activists far removed from central party discipline, and with their own agendas.
Since this election also came under international scrutiny it is gratifying to hear that the Carter Center delegation has commended the EOC on how the exercise was managed.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
