Final Day For PLP Court Petitions:
By Vanessa C. Rolle -
Nassau, Bahamas:

Today is the deadline for the Progressive Liberal Party to file petitions for the seats it deems questionable that were won by the Free National Movement in the May 2 General Election.

On Friday, Wayne Munroe, the attorney representing several PLP candidates, told The Journal that two of the applications for leave to file petitions were filed, heard and granted that day.

The two constituencies concerned are Pinewood and Marco City, he said.

Mr. Munroe explained that political parties have no standing to present election petitions.

"This means that the petitions can be presented. What happens in an election court matter is that you require permission to present a petition," he said.

It is expected that documents regarding other constituencies will be filed and ruled on today, Mr. Munroe said.

The PLP won 18 of 41 seats in the election, and those being contested were lost by 70 votes or fewer.

Mr. Munroe plans to argue that non-Bahamians voted and plans to call for the prosecution, imprisonment then deportation of those found guilty of this crime.

"After Monday, the petitions will be presented, recognizance has to be entered into; petitions and certain other documents have to be served. If the persons who are elected try to run from service of the petition, then we will have to go and get substitute in service. If they are sensible and don’t run, then we will serve them and the matter will be determined and it will be best for them to respond to them," Mr. Munroe said.

PLP candidates plan to contest Sea Breeze, Blue Hills, Golden Isles, Marco City and Pinewood.

"It is also possible to get orders for discovery and disclosure and from there you just set the petition down for hearing," Mr. Munroe said.

"I don’t anticipate how long matters are going to take because I do not know what the other side is going to do. The other side can take an attitude of being delaying and argue about the quality of your bond paper and all manner of stuff or they might come and be stunning and say ‘we agree that these people ought not to have voted’."

Mr. Munroe said there should not be a confrontational position because the fact that people voted who shouldn’t have voted does not have anything to do with the candidate on either side.

"No elected person has a vested interest in supporting somebody who shouldn’t have voted," he said.

Mr. Munroe said the Election Court will determine which votes were legal in the election.

He challenged anyone to publicly declare that they don’t have a problem with non-citizens determining the results of an election in The Bahamas.

Mr. Munroe also acknowledged that the electoral system is not perfect, and it would be hard to make any such system free of glitches.

"We will never be able to make any system perfect," he said. "All over the world, they have systems of voting and all over the world they try to get it as perfect as possible. And all over the sensible world, you put a parliamentary commissioner in charge, and he is in charge of running the system effectively, and when he sees that there are faults, he corrects them."

He explained that everyone born in The Bahamas after independence is not a citizen, even though one might have received a voter’s card by presentation of a birth certificate and other means. He also noted that many Bahamians do not have passports.

Mr. Munroe said if this is found to be the problem, the parliamentary commissioner might need to add several more questions when screening people for registration.

"The person might register to vote, not doing anything intentional or wrong. But even if he is not doing anything intentional or wrong, his vote still shouldn’t count because he is not in fact a Bahamian," he said.

"Or someone might have just come there maliciously – lying. So you will never be able to spot it outright."

He explained that if someone is born in The Bahamas after 1973 and either parent is Bahamian and they are married then that person is a Bahamian. If a person is born in The Bahamas after 1973 and his or her parents aren’t married, that person is only a Bahamian if his or her mother is a Bahamian, he said.

"It’s as simple as that, but they would be able to present a certificate to say they were born in The Bahamas," Mr. Munroe said. "This is the law and we would be in serious trouble if it was otherwise."

18 June 2007