By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS (Thursday 14th July 2022) — “I’m saying clearly if Timothy Harris doesn’t ask for observers to be here, I don’t know which elections we’ll have because we will not have an election without observers.” So said SKNLP Leader Dr. Terrance Drew, speaking on the SKNLP-sponsored weekly ‘We Talk’ on FreedomFM on Wednesday 13th July 2022. Dr. Drew revealed he has written to regional and international organisations asking for observers. “I have received a response already; CARICOM has responded and they have said that they are ready — they are just waiting for the government to ask for them to come in to observe the elections.”
“Last election we only had a handful of regional observers, just a few. We know that the OAS was denied entry when an arrangement could have been made to make sure that we have the observers here. It was a deliberate act to block the OAS from coming here. Generally what happens in elections is that the government is the one who invites observers in. Observers are not allowed to come into a country on their own. However, we inside the country will pressure the government to make sure they ask, and I’m saying clearly if Timothy Harris doesn’t ask for observers to be here, we will not have an election without observers. We have to draw the line in the sand,” Dr. Drew said. He criticised the transparent ballot boxes used in the 2020 election: “When we left Cayon, I remember the box could not even close and there were some ballots inside the box that pushed the box up; they had to tape down the box with duct tape. These are the kind of things that took place during the last elections.” He also referenced a 2022 New York Times article which identified St. Kitts as the number-one case study of democracy under threat in the Caribbean and Latin America, noting how the government used COVID to suppress democracy and undermine the SKNLP.