The Tribune

By DANA SMITH dsmith@tribunemedia.net FORT Charlotte MP Alfred Sears said the Bahamas has been "plagued with controversy" for years because of secret campaign contributions in elections. He also believes the general elections have not been conducted in "a fair and transparent manner". "The election process in the Bahamas has come under severe criticism over the past forty years due to the influence of secret campaign contributions, especially by foreigners, often resulting in the allegation that the Bahamas is a country 'for sale' and, more recently, for the administration of the elections, raising a concern about the integrity and fairness of our elections," Mr Sears said. Mr Sears was speaking in the House of Assembly, yesterday, where he told the House he is in support of the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Bill, but raised a few questions concerning it. As an example of concerns about election administrations' fairness, Mr Sears recalled the 2008 case of Allyson Maynard Gibson v Byron Woodside, where "the court had to decide the lawfulness of the votes cast by 183 voters in Pinewood". And two years later, in the case of Leo Ryan Pinder v Jack Thompson, "the issue before the Court was the lawfulness of six protest ballots". Mr Sears stated that in the first case, the votes were found to be unlawful. In the second, the court found the Parliamentary Commissioner to have "disfranchised" a voter. "It is our hope, Mr Speaker, that the Parliamentary Commissioner has sufficient resources for the conduct of the 2012 General Elections to restore public confidence in the Parliamentary Commissioner and our electoral process to avoid future criticism of the kind that was directed at the Parliamentary Commissioner by the Supreme Court," Mr Sears said. Several examples of alleged secret campaign contributions were also brought up by Mr Sears, including an incident in 2008 where Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham allegedly "conceded that he and his party had indeed received secret campaign contributions from the Grand Bahamas Port Authority". He also brought up the Commission of Enquiry of 1967, otherwise known as the "Bacon Commission". He stated it was revealed in the commission that a member of the senate, the speaker of the house, and a member of the house "had received or were about to receive some financial benefit" from Port Authority or Amusements casino company. "If we are not to repeat the political mistakes of the past and ensure the integrity of our political process, we must regulate campaign contributions in our election process, as a safeguard against corruption in our governance process," Mr Sears said. Regarding the Parliamentary Elections Amendment Bill, he said: "There are a number of questions, relevant to the Bill before us, which we should consider." Mr Sears stated that overseas voters should not be "limited" to only students and government employees, but all Bahamians working overseas. Also, a fixed date for the general elections should be enforced and the right to vote "which currently is merely statutory right", should be a fundamental right in the Bill of Rights. "I recommend, therefore, that we support constitutional reform to amend our Constitution so that the right of every citizen to vote in an election of members of the House of Assembly be entrenched in the Constitution as a fundamental right," Mr Sears said.