By Gregor Nassief
Dear Prime Minister,
The central issue that you continue to ignore is whether the country can trust the institution charged with protecting the vote. For years, Dominicans have raised the same historic concerns: an inflated voters’ list, long-term overseas and flown-in voting, weak identity safeguards, bribery, treating, campaign-finance abuse, uneven enforcement, and persistent doubt about whether the Electoral Commission is sufficiently impartial and independent to referee the process without fear or favour. That is why the independence of the Commission matters so much. Without a Commission that the country trusts to enforce the rules impartially and to confront these abuses seriously, the same disputes will return after every election, and every close result will remain vulnerable to suspicion.
The 2019 election, the last fully contested general election, showed how serious these issues can be in practice. On the figures provided, several constituencies were decided within an 8% margin of votes, including Castle Bruce, La Plaine, Mahaut, Morne Jaune, and Wesley. In seats that close, weak enforcement of residency rules, list integrity, identification safeguards, bribery and treating laws, or rules against organised facilitation of questionable voting can make the difference between winning and losing. That is precisely why an impartial Commission can make or break the freedom, fairness, and legitimacy of an election.
On June 8, a respectful public appeal was made to you to help reset the Electoral Commission because public confidence in its impartiality and independence has been badly damaged. That appeal did not deal in rumours or innuendo. It raised concrete matters: the suspension of voter registration for over a year, the likely impact of that suspension on local elections, the continued non-issuance of voter identification cards despite the law, public interference with the Commission’s space, and the repeated suggestion that the confirmation process ends on October 14, 2026, as if that were beyond the Commission’s legal discretion.
Two days later, at your June 10 press conference, those concerns were not answered. Instead, talk of political interference and confidence in the Commission was dismissed as distractions and “smoke screens.” People were told to simply go and confirm, and you declared that the matter is “out of my hands.” You also said, “I represent more people in Dominica than anybody else,” and challenged those who raised doubts about confidence in the system. Those remarks go to the heart of the problem. No one person, however electorally successful, gets to decide which public concerns count and which must be brushed aside.
Confidence in an election cannot be measured by the comfort of the incumbent. It must be measured by whether citizens across political lines believe the rules are being applied fairly, transparently, and without fear or favour. The concerns being raised are not smoke screens. They are facts. Voter registration was suspended for over one year. During that period, local government elections took place while new voters could not register or participate. The confirmation process began with visible administrative weakness and slow throughput. The Registration of Electors Act requires the Chief Registering Officer to cause voter identification cards to be issued to duly registered electors, yet the process continues without cards being issued to approved persons.
Let this also be stated plainly. The call is not for people to stay away from the process. The exact opposite is true. Every eligible Dominican should register, every eligible Dominican should confirm, and every voter should be able to do so in a process that inspires confidence. But maximum participation requires maximum trust. Citizens should not be asked to register and confirm blindly, as if questions about fairness, competence, and independence are irrelevant.
Nor can the issue of political interference be lightly swept away. The Electoral Commission Act says that the Commission is independent and is not subject to the control or direction of any person or authority. Yet the public record points to repeated moments in which you have spoken on behalf of the Commission, acted on its behalf, defended its breaches, requested help for it that it did not seek, and shaped public expectations about its deadlines and procedures. That is why public doubt cannot be dismissed as mischief. It is the natural consequence of a Commission whose constitutional space has repeatedly been blurred.
Your statement that the matter is “out of my hands” is particularly difficult to accept because it sits beside a different public reality. When intervention was considered necessary, the Commission’s independence was not treated as untouchable. The public record shows that you stepped in to influence and direct the Commission to reinstate the use of a birth certificate as a form of identification in certain circumstances, an outcome many supported but one that underscored how little constitutional space the Commission was asserting for itself. It is therefore not credible to say that the executive can shape the process informally when it chooses, but bears no responsibility when the issue becomes one of restoring confidence in the institution.
The law itself only reinforces why trust in the Commission matters, including overrules whose weak enforcement can affect outcomes in close seats. The Registration of Electors Act gives the Commission significant authority over registration, confirmation, revision of the register, special registration periods, and timelines. It also contemplates that, if a writ is issued during the confirmation period, a transitional register will be used for the election, and that once the writ is issued, the register is closed to amendment until after polling day. The House of Assembly Elections Act makes voter identification cards the primary polling-day document while creating a fallback route for electors without cards who can prove identity through other official documents and an oath. In short, the legal framework places enormous practical discretion in the hands of the Commission. If that Commission is weak, error-prone, or publicly distrusted, those powers do not reassure the country. They magnify the danger.
My June 8 letter ended by saying, “As the arbitrator of all things in Dominica, the reset is entirely in your hands. I appeal to you to act.” Your response on June 10 was not to dispute the facts, acknowledge the breaches, or outline a plan to restore confidence. It was, in effect, to tell the country to accept what it has been given and move on. But a government cannot demand acceptance where it has not earned confidence, and a Prime Minister cannot claim the authority to speak for the people while dismissing the people who are speaking.
At this stage, in light of your clear intention to ignore these concerns, the matters addressed across these now seven letters will also be referred to regional and international election-observation bodies, so that these concerns can be formally registered with the Organization of American States, CARICOM, and the Commonwealth Secretariat. That step is not being taken to discourage participation. It is being taken for the opposite reason: because every eligible Dominican should register, every eligible Dominican should confirm, and every voter should be able to do so in a process that commands confidence in the system, confidence in the process, and above all confidence in a Commission that deals impartially with the historic issues that have plagued Dominica’s electoral life. As we can no longer rely on you to address these concerns, we will appeal to others to give them the closest possible attention.
That is why this matter will not go away. It will not go away because the Commission’s independence remains unfinished business. It will not go away because the Commission’s repeated and, in some instances, unconstitutional errors have been real. It will not go away because close elections magnify every weakness in the system. And it will not go away because the people of Dominica deserve an election process that is not merely lawful in the narrowest sense, but genuinely credible, impartial, and worthy of trust.
Respectfully,
Gregor Nassief
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