Election-year sod-turning

SUPPOSE someone deposited hundreds of millions into the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC)’s bank account on the eve of a general election. How would you react? Quite probably with suspicion. But what if no individual was behind such largesse and, instead, the payee was a government? Would that change things? And what if it was not money being placed in an account, but, instead, the allocation of a mega-project? Wouldn’t your eyebrows rise?

The sod-turning ceremony for the proposed site of the new headquarters of the EBC on February 12 was a curious event.

Far from appearing as a coincidence, it almost seemed orchestrated to coincide with a general election year; the land at the corner of Lamy Street and Saddle Road, St Clair, had been sign-posted for the EBC, sealed off and left dormant for several months prior.

Underlining the partisan mood of the government proceedings was the prominent place of Stuart Young, the Prime Minister’s chosen successor, in the photo opportunity devised for the event.

Mr Young, too, held a ribboned shovel, alongside Dr Rowley and Mark Ramkerrysingh, the EBC chairman. All officials in that photograph bore broad smiles. But there was something sad about the entire affair.

The PM suggested the new building would somehow deepen democracy, being “a celebration of a century of electoral processes in TT.”

In a similar vein, Mr Young noted no High Court ruling has ever found the EBC to be unfair and citizens should be proud of that.

But buildings and successfully defended court petitions are rather low bars to judge democratic norms against.

To witness officials take part in a ceremony for a new EBC HQ without bothering to say anything about the cost breakdown of the project, the chosen contractors, how the packages involved were procured or even the provenance of the entire enterprise is not to witness a bolstering of the power of the people.

It is to come away with worrying questions.

What are the factors that have necessitated a building?

Who determined this location fits? Through what process or study?

Should the state be centralising EBC functions or decentralising?

The official Udecott brief for the project says it will “consolidate many of the EBC functions which are scattered across the country.” It also states there will be 62 parking spaces. Staff alone will be 218.

A new building, a sod-turning, a bit of lofty speech-making – none of it can ever replace true electoral reform.

Such reforms might make voting easier, shorten poll-day lines, regulate candidate financing, cut through cumbersome parliament procedures and allow more modern, easier means of exercising the franchise.

Instead of being left with a lingering sense of distrust, citizens would have true cause to smile.