By: Staff Writer
March 21, 2025
Protests in Dominica hit a fever pitch on Thursday as police hurl tear gas on protestors who came out against controversial electoral reform Bills in the Dominica parliament. Things got physical and even members of the media were being roughed up during the intense standoff.
The police had earlier warned that no permission had been granted to anyone to gather and protest outside the Parliament building on the outskirts of the capital.
However, as protests are at times, the warning from the police made no difference as massive amounts of Dominicans came out.
The controversial electoral reform Bills are said to make Dominica elections free and fair.
The Bills, passed on Wednesday, March 19 in the Dominica parliament is continuing the work of the Roosevelt Skerrit government in electoral modernization, making sure it is an ongoing process that would require diligence, legal rigour and a commitment to fairness.
Detractors of the electoral reform Bills call into question the process by which the public consultation was done.
One detractor wrote on Facebook: “Instead of educating the people about the rights, duties and responsibilities within a constitutional democracy, and the benefits of a reformed electoral system to the nation, the authorities are presenting the people with an online survey on electoral reform which – in my opinion – is doomed to yield inaccurate results. It is my view that the decision to rely on an online survey for Dominica’s electoral reform opinion is wholly inadequate, professionally ill-advised, and fundamentally flawed.”
They continued: “The survey is not only flawed, but erroneously unfair in terms of its basic construction. Promoters of the survey declare that “the Electoral Reform Survey is intended to measure the level of satisfaction and opinions of all stakeholders in the electoral process on matters related to electoral process and reform in Dominica.” It was further declared that “all responses will be anonymous, with no identifiers for participation, and will be used for the sole purpose of this data collection exercise.” By their very own admission, the organizers and promoters of the survey are suggesting that the exercise is to be undertaken by Dominicans, especially Dominicans at home – because, after all, it is residents who should and can provide answers to the various questions on the survey.”
Also, it is said that after having asked for voters identification cards, the government refuses to mandate that the cards have biometric information and the bill says that the election commissioner ‘may’ instead of ‘shall’ in reference to voter ID cards. The Bills also calls for the re registration of voters within 3 months which would in effect clean the list, but the Government is doing re confirmation of voters and is allowing 15 months for same. The bill does not address campaign finance at all either.