Opinion: Saint Vincents Court of Public Opinion
By Jolly Green
Regardless
of the March 21, 2019, ruling of Judge Stanley John in the matter of
the SVG Election Petitions, the Court of Public Opinion who followed
the issue closely may give a different verdict. Judges have to follow
legal guidelines and laws; the public often follows its heart and
head in the Court of Public Opinion.
“Election
fraud” is a generic term. Laws, however, are specific. You either
followed the law or you didn’t. In the SVG election, it has been
proved without any doubt that many legal processes were not followed.
They may or may not have been mistakes by election officials,
regardless, therefore, the law was not observed, perhaps by default
but that is inexcusable and unforgivable. Maybe excusable in the mind
of a Judge perhaps not forgivable in the mind of public opinion.
When
numbers don’t add up to their self, they are called impossible
numbers. In such cases, exactly which numbers were true or false may
be unknowable, especially if the chain of evidence was breached. When
you break the chain of custody, you can recount ballots ’till the
cows come home, but when you don’t know if the ballots are the real
ones, recounting won’t cure uncertainty.
So
when there are in one box more counterfoils than ballots that should
send all kinds of messages to all corners of the State.
The
court refused to allow inspection of the ballot boxes. Such
inspection would have helped prove what went on with those boxes.
This is not a matter of political party fishing; it is a matter of
court officials carrying out a forensic-style investigation. We can
never be sure if members of the ULP hierarchy have not already rifled
and contaminated those boxes, even in correcting the contents
contaminated the evidence. During a previous election, one Julian
Francis said he knew who voted for him and how many Syrians voted,
such precise information that can only come from examining the
contents of a ballot box.
During
the hearing there were so many happening going on that was called by
government lawyers, mistakes, not one or two but numerous incidents
that when added together makes a full circle . One voting station
official even admitted she took the ballot box home with her and kept
it overnight in her house.
Why
did the Gonsalves led ULP government need to spend what is believed
by some to be 5 million dollars trying to stop the Petitions Court
hearing ever taking place. If they did nothing wrong that money must
have been misspent and wasted. If they had done something wrong,
there was a need to spend big money to try and avoid getting found
out.
Most
members of the public will realize that if you have done something
wrong, you need strong representation in court if you have done
absolutely nothing wrong you need little or no defense.
But
the ULP government employed highly trained and highly paid
international and regional lawyers to try and stop the case from ever
coming to Court.
Ralph
Gonsalves was sworn in as Prime Minister while there were count
disputes and before taking into consideration any objections. The
whole thing was a rush, and the Governor General bowed to the request
for Gonsalves to head a government, unless the Supervisor of
elections had signed off on the contest figures prematurely perhaps.
The
following has nothing to do with the petitions court case because it
was not part of the pleadings. In the weeks and days leading up to
the election, the Unity Labour Party and their representatives gave
away all sorts of building materials, livestock, and money in
envelopes. The traditional gifts like T-shirts and strong rum were
also given, but the most in value were the building materials. Not
just a few thousand dollars worth’s, not only a few hundred
thousand worth but multi-millions. All stocks of building supplies
held in government yards and warehouses, lumber, cement, galvanized
roofing, paint, and reinforcing steel. The yards and warehouses had
been fully stocked over the preceding few weeks and months to the
point of overflow. After election day nothing was left, the cupboard
was bare. They also imported from Jamaica upward of twenty million
dollars in their name and distributed that also. So when people say
it’s traditional and it’s just little building materials, it’s
not it's vast and very, very wrong. It is quite simply election
bribery. A Bum-Bum recipient told me that he was told by a ULP
representative that if the NDP won they would have the building
materials taken away from him and he would be locked up, so best vote
ULP. I also know a man who was told to pull down his wooden house on
the promise of cement, blocks, lumber, and roofing to build a new
house, he got nothing but a promise for the next election. These were
provable illegal acts and ran contrary to St. Vincent and the
Grenadines: Electoral Law, Representation of the Peoples Act.
Of
course, I know, and we all know that the matter of this type of
corrupt practice was not part of the court matter. But this has been
reported on in the past and few if anyone cared about those exposés.
2010
https://kentonxtchance.wordpress.com/tag/election-fraud-in-st-vincent/page/3/
Police
everywhere are responsible for investigating any allegations of
electoral fraud.
May
6, 2010 - Police forces across England are probing allegations of
electoral fraud.
Apr
30, 2012 - Police open probe into alleged voter fraud in East London.
Mar
17, 2015 – UK Police opened 51 investigations on related to alleged
voting fraud ranging from impersonation, stolen ballots and threats.
May
10, 2016. Warwickshire Police investigate alleged electoral fraud.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-36258963
Oct
28, 2016 - Iowa capital, police investigate alleged voter fraud.
May
25, 2017. Cayman Island Police continue to investigate allegations of
vote buying and voter fraud.
http://cayman27.ky/2017/05/police-continue-to-investigate-vote-buying-fraud-allegations/
Apr
11, 2017 - Serbian Police Probe Alleged Election Fraud
Mar
22, 2018 - Sierra Leonean police investigating alleged election
irregularities.
Oct
31, 2018 – Solomon Islands Police have established a new team to
investigate possible election fraud.
October
2018, Vancouver Police investigate election fraud allegations.
2018,
UK police forces investigated 266 cases of alleged electoral fraud.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/electoral-fraud/data-and-analysis
These
are but a few reports of investigations; there are hundreds, all
involving police in numerous different countries, not one
investigation by SVG police in 20 years. Why?
In
almost every country in the World, the police investigate any
allegations of election fraud. Report election fraud to Vincentian
police and they will probably take you to the interview room and beat
you half to death, then arrest you for assaulting them. In SVG the
police watched as truck after truck passed the police stations loaded
with stolen government building materials. Do they investigate and
make arrests? No, of course, they don’t because some of the trucks
are going to their homes and their friends and families homes. The
police have taken it on themselves to be a private police force of
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves; they would never investigate
allegations of election fraud unless he told them to. They know all
about the outflow of materials to bribe the electorate and do
nothing, absolutely nothing. I doubt the Vincentian police have ever
investigated any election fraud allegation, anytime, anywhere.
It
has taken over three years to bring the petitions case to court
because the ULP government and their lawyers frustrated the process.
Those matters should have, and could have been heard and decided on
within three months, not almost four years; it’s a travesty of
justice.
This
is what you can expect when you’re in bed with the suchlike of
Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, it’s a mirrored image of how he cons
the Venezuelan people.
It
would be great if the US State Department canceled all US visas to
Vincentian police and selected politicians and their family members.
Take away the privileges and insist on US officials to report on the
next SVG elections. Try and stop the blatant multi-million dollar
bribery of voters with building materials, livestock, household goods
and money in envelopes. This was not a matter of
$5000 worth of T-shirts given away; this was a matter of 50 million
dollars of building materials given away to bribe the outcome of the
elections.
This
commentary by me is not supposed to be disrespectful to the
Honourable Court or the Honourable Judge Stanley John. In general, it
is about more than what he had the jurisdiction to preside over but
does contain some of the petitions case because it is related. My
apologies if anyone feels insulted in any way, that was not my
intention expressed or implied.
Jolly
Green
Read the coming important follow up,
coming mid week at news media near you
Has the
Unity Labour Party, Dr Ralph Gonsalves and Vincentian Police turned
themselves and at least half of the citizenship into Criminals.
END
DISCLAMER: The opinion, belief and viewpoint expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinion, belief and viewpoint of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com or official policies of iNews Cayman/ieyenews.com
Published April 1, 2019
Join the discussion — please keep to our Community Guidelines.