Dominica’s opposition United Workers Party (UWP) has told supporters to be prepared to take to the streets “in the not-too-distant future” to demand that electoral reform takes place in Dominica and renewed calls for fresh general elections on the island.
The UWP, along with the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) boycotted the December 6 poll that Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit called two years ahead of the constitutional deadline in support of their demands that electoral reform should have taken place before any fresh general election.
Skerrit’s Dominica Labour Party (DLP), which had enjoyed an 18-3 majority in the last Parliament, increased its majority in the Parliament by one with the other two seats going to independent candidates.
Speaking at a UWP rally in Salisbury on the west coast on Sunday night, UWP leader Dr. Thompson Fontaine defended the decision to boycott the election, reminding supporters that the demands for electoral reform were not new.
“Given the behavior of the prime minister, we must be prepared to fight and to fight hard for electoral reform. There may come a time in the not-too-distant future when we will have to call upon you to take to the streets in mass protests.
“There may come a time in the future if we do not get electoral reform that to take it we will have to take to the streets. We in the leadership of the party, we are prepared to lead that fight, but you must be prepared to join in.
“This fight ladies and gentlemen has to do with our survival as a democratic country and that of our party,” said Fontaine, an economist, who is on EC$75,000 (One EC dollar=US$0.37 cents) bail, on a charge of inciting violence and obstruction of justice, dating back to 2017.
Fontaine recalled that the party had evidence of a bloated electoral list that he had said had been used in the 2019 general election.
“We had the evidence, we had the list of persons who came down illegally, we had the list of dead persons voting. In most countries the conduct of the 2019 election, any court worth its salt would have overturned those results, but not so in Dominica and you expect us to keep on fighting a losing battle.
“At the end of the day, the observers heard us,” he said, adding that the UWP had for the first time in its history boycotted a general election here “because we were certain would be fraudulent and rigged based on our past experiences.
Prime Minister Skerrit is expected to name his new Cabinet on Monday.
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