Wickham says no to Bajans in the diaspora voting in local elections

Political Scientist Peter Wickham strongly advises against members of the diaspora registering and voting under Barbados’ current electoral system.

As Barbadians living overseas continue to demand the right to vote in the island’s general elections, Wickham said allowing them to do so would be essentially leaving an electoral system in the hands of persons who do not live in Barbados.

Wickham said that persons in the diaspora would be casting their votes at an embassy or via the Internet, leaving those living in Barbados to deal with decisions that they have made.

“I think that is highly unwise,” Wickham said as he made his contribution to Sunday’s Parliamentary Reform Commission Special Diaspora Zoom-Hall Meeting.

Wickham said that given Barbados’ political reality, it would not be advisable to “just have 200, 000 to 300,000 [people from the diaspora] just joining the electoral register and voting from a place they live”.

However, Wickham suggested: “we create some kind of a vehicle where we have a diaspora representative, and we let persons who are residents in the diaspora vote for that person”.

“Now that person can sit in Parliament, in the Lower House, in the Upper House or wherever. And I think it is tidier. It is interesting enough that it is something [Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr] Ralph Gonsalves proposed when he had constitutional reform in St Vincent and the Grenadines because they have a similar problem.

“It gives us the opportunity to have someone to express our concerns from overseas. Still, it also locks that support down to one person, and it doesn’t create a situation in which that individual can change the course of government on the basis of voting, in this case.

“Now that would have been my proposal, and I am hoping that in the course of your conversations and this issue comes up again, you would give consideration, and I hope that the commission would also give consideration to the proposal that I would have made which helps to address not only your concerns for the diaspora…,” Wickham said.

Indicating that there are good reasons why Barbadians living overseas want to vote in general elections, Wickham further explained that this could result in an exponentially large number of voters.

“The challenge I have with this is in some recent elections, we have had majorities of 50 or 100 or 200, and this can be problematic because it is not so much a question of if these people vote, but where they vote. Technically speaking, you vote for a representative.

“So, If you are a resident overseas and, in some instances, the family home that you may have come from initially is not functioning, you may find yourself having to register somewhere, and you may just register anywhere. And there is such limited control over it that it may come to a situation where the vote overseas gets to determine the outcome of the election in functional terms. And that is exactly what happened in St Kitts,” Wickham said.

(AH)