Dominica’s Ambassador to the OECS and CARICOM, His Excellency Felix Gregoire has advised the public to avoid getting carried away by electoral reform.
He said generally, elections in Dominica are known to be peaceful and free.
“I would like to advise that we do not get carried away by electoral reform,” he said. “I share that opinion because of my extensive involvement in the electoral process from 1980.”
Gregoire added that given his experience with process, he believes that it has served Dominica.
“It is the same electoral process that brought the Freedom Party into power in 1980, the United Workers Party in 1995, the coalition government into power in 2000 and the Labour Party into power in 2004, 2009 and 2014,” he argued.
According to him, after each general election, the Chief Elections Officer submits a report to the government and makes recommendation for improvement.
“The present government has attempted to implement recommendations made, especially regarding the use of identification cards for voting to enhance the existing laws,” he stated, adding that the the government has cataloged its efforts to have draft laws passed in parliament, “and all Dominicans are aware of the opposition towards these efforts.”
He went on to say that when no political party is responsible for the delays experienced in the reform process, “one has to question the source of that information and the intention of those making such false statements.”
Gregoire further stated that “every sober” person in Dominica knows what has to be done to remove the names of dead persons on the list of electors.
“The elections laws are very clear on this matter and the fact that the soldiers of electoral reform are not doing what is necessary in that regard, begs the question as to whether they are serious or are just interested in having a dead horse to flog, ” he said.
Gregoire explained that he had read a copy of the document entitled ‘Interim Report on the Electoral Reform Effort’ by the group comprising of leaders of church, business and civil society.
“The copy I have read is not signed and I have not been able to find a signed copy, so I will reserve my comment on that report in the public domain until I have found a signed copy,” he explained.
He said meanwhile, as political parties prepare themselves for the next general elections, “I trust that we as law abiding citizens we will conduct ourselves in a manner that will preserve the peace in our beloved country.”
While Gregoire insists on the freeness of previous elections, in his statement, he does not mention the issue of fairness which is at the core of ongoing advocacy for electoral reform in Dominica.
Ambassador to the OAS and DLP’s campaign manager, Vince Henderson said recently that there was no need for electoral reform in Dominica pointing out that all observer missions to Dominica during previous elections have reported that elections were free and fair. Henderson was taken to task by the UWP parliamentary opposition and Concerned Citizens Movement, both advocates for electoral reform, for misrepresenting the findings of the Observer Missions.
The report of a mission from the Commonwealth Secretariat which observed the 2014 general election Dominica, concludes that while the election was free for entry and the casting of the ballot, “the election was not necessarily fair, due to: the lack of balance, and in some cases lack of professionalism of the media; the absence of campaign finance regulations and the resultant lack of transparency on financing, coupled with the exponentially increased expense associated with campaigning.”
Bos stop singing for your super and start doing and saying things which can actually help things as it is in Dominica. All you political appointies thats all you do, sing sing sing just so the people can stay pinned down by your all while you and your click flourish.
Things will change sir, wait and see.
As an ambassador his allegiance should be to the country so why is he defending partisan ideals when his job is to advance our society in every manner possible. Why not defend democracy and have a balance playing field for elections. This indiscriminate sharing of monies and other resources with the implied outcome of obtaining votes in exchange should be outlawed; what about having fixed date for election; finance sources; etc. I look at how every American election people are tuned in for debates and the likes yet where it’s more pertinent in our own society it’s not demanded. These things should be basic and are all part of defending democracy!
I am talen aback by the amount of forgetful idiots following UWP. Every year they say election is not fair,yet every election year they take part.Only to lose and repeat themselves like stuck records.Election is run by the constituition and laws of Dominica.Ask St.Valle and Defoe when they took the GOV’T to court for Bribery and Treating.The observers made a RECOMMENDATION.Uneducated UWP.
Ambassador Gregoire is correct. Everyone agrees that our elections have been freed. The complaints about fairness are either driven by sour grapes, loss-of-power-syndrome opposition malcontents or those who think the more unreasonable and prohibitively costly a proposal is the smarter it sounds. Then there are a few who think that the less likely a recommendation’s feasibility is the more likely it will remain a topic for endless disputation.
This guy will sell his very soul to the highest bidder. It’s alarming how money and position can have a controlling influence over you. I don’t respect people just for their qualifications or their station in society, I respect you for how you reason and act. The world has too many educated derelicts. Gregoire is a perfect example.
When you have a Jack A like Gabriel St.Jean.After 41yrs in the Police Force this man has nothing to show for it.Do not blame Skerrit for your failure.Tell us what people will take things into their own hands.That is why the Force is the way it is.TRAITOR.Remember Jno Rose Lindsay.Never believe your time in the Police Force would come to an end.UWP will never win election dream on.It is WICKED people like you who support UWP.
Pathetic, narrow-minded and visionless little man! Do you see why the other Caribbean islands have left us behind? These are our leaders in Dominica. These are the people who are supposed to take the country forward. These are the people managing our under-development all their working life. The purpose of Government is to develop the nation and advance the prospects and prosperity of its people! But look what Dominica gets for leadership? Backward and stagnant thinking! No vision, no progress, no advancement – same old same old forever?
Take your doggone blows..Dominicans are tired of you all now. Can’t be you sense that?
When you come back here crying like a little boy, you will get a second dose of blows!!
Your pappy Show!
Your stooge!
Your clown!
Your terre berre!
Your idiot!
Your makak wee!
Your laughing stock!
Your Soo Tea Wer!
Skerrit Must Go
Skerrit Must Go
LAZY Skerrit Must Go Now
Shame shame Wesley. No wonder you are not welcome in your community, even labourites hate you, your damn puppet
When in 2019 a man can come to the people of his country and lie to them in this way, he certainly does not earn my respect..Many of us know what has been said about our electoral process Mr Gregoire..It is a fetid mess! Stop discrediting yourself during your twilight years. So you love Skerrit more than yourself? I know it’s he you are defending, while you are discrediting your own self .
What a shame!
Skerrit Must Go
Skerrit Must Go
LAZY Skerrit Must Go Now
Sherrie, by himself, doesn’t have the wherewithal to stay at the apex of government. So he uses stooges and sycophants like this moron, the Commissioner of the Electoral Office, the Speaker of Parliament, Police Chief, the country’s unproductive Ambassadors, et alia as ‘bodyguards’. None of them will save him from the wrath of the electors this tome around.
These people have to realise we live in a different age. They are afraid of changes and improvement to the system. Communities are expanding, passports are sold to persons in far away lands. We dont no these people. we dont live in small villages where everybody knows each other. Are they contributing to economy?
So don’t try to deceive the people.
Man you better shut the hole in your face called a mouth, It’s a disgrace to be referred to as Ambassador yet utter these ridiculous words. YOU ALL TIME IS NEARING THE END!!
Shame on you, stop singing for your super your damn educated fool who drink the DLP corrupted kool aid. Go help with the development of St. Mark to create viable employment for the youths.
Wesley stop talking crap, wake up and smell the coffee your government is bringing this lovely country to the lowest state it has ever been. You should speak against all the wickedness this administration has done but no you are singing for your super. There’s lots of people like you that put self first and not country. You all are a bunch of hypocrites, shame on you all, what a disgrace. God will deal with you all in due time.
For those of you who believe I look at too much CNN, I still say Gregoire is like Barr, (sorry Levi), and the voter list in Dominica is like the redacted Muller Report…
Redacted simply means to hide what you doh want people to see.
Both Vince and Gregoire would lose that cushy position if the voter list is reformed, so we get it brothers…. but just remember Spider: Sankey days coming
Got it
That statement by the former public officer is what is referred to as ‘singing for one’s supper.’ Chupes, Felix
It’s people like you that have our country way at the BACK. Always keep the people thinking the little they have is more than enough while you and that evil DLP CABAL enriches you’all selves while the masses turns BEGGARS.
When it comes to elections fraud, the malfeasance is being perpetrated by Skerritt who operates through his quid quo pro bribes by providing transportation to overseas voters to come and vote for him. No where in Mr. Gregoire’s statement did he address this blatant wrongd
oing by Skerritt.
Of course you would agree for things to remain as they are so persons who are dead for the last 50 years can still be be able to vote in order to tarnish the electoral process.
What is the purpose of education if it is to misrepresent the facts and to confuse the less well educated. Ambassadors Henderson and Gregoire are two latest examples who think they are the brightest bulbs in the room and want to tell the rest of the populace to include the Bishop that whatever they understand about electoral reform predates tertiary education and they have it all wrong so listen to them. Gregory is not even congruent and suggests that because he participated in the electoral process he is the authority on the matter and things should revert to being done the way they were when he was involved. I guess he is also saying that the use of computer technology in the process is also wrong and everything has to be handwritten. I don’t know what these guys have to defend and protect but they are making Dominica look ridiculous in the eyes of the rest of the region. They have forgotten that they are not ambassadors for the Labour Party but of Dominica.
What a cow’s behind!
That man is just as corrupt as the man he serves. In 2017, when he had fallen out with Skerrit, he expressed an opinion regarding this issue. Yesterday, as he is on better terms with Skerrit again, he did an 180 degree u-turn. Gregoire, i think you disqualified yourself to have any further opinion on this or any other matter. It’s like an auction, the highest bidder gets it!!
Everyone coming out now just singing for their supper
Man stupessssssssssss
Get lost your damn puppet singing for your supper. No wonder your community rejected you. As a former cabinet secretary your supported all the victimization of Public Officers by this DLP goons. You have no balls. Never did anything to help the unemployed youths in the St. Mark community
On 22.Aug. 2017 in the Sun newspaper, Gregoire commented and I quote: “On the element of open and competitive election and the notion of free and fair election, we in Dominica in the last two elections, 2009 and 2014 in particular, we have not met international standards of integrity,” Gregoire said. “And that’s a huge problem.” My question now to Gregoire, has anything changed since to ascertain fair elections. I don’t think so! So why is this man saying exactly the opposite now stating that we do not need electoral reform? What in your opinion do we need than? I think the tries of the matter on hand is, that very recently a big envelope changed hands and a certain person over night had a dream that Dominica’s elections have always been and still are fair and it’s PM is not a notorious liar and he is not a thief and he is rather a very good man albeit the leader of cult rather then a political party. Not my words but the words of Gregoire.
Shame shame on you than puppet
Once again you are singing for your DLP kool aid, your puppet. You no better yet still keep sending out trash from your mouth. You supportive of these goons up to now you cannot go back to your community to help with the DLP campaign, because you are not a popular person in your own community, even labourites hate you because you never contributed nothing to the community shame shame on you Wesley
Come on Gregoire
20 years of nothingness!
Hospital/s? – Non
International Airport? – Non
Employment? – Non
Industry/Ies? – Non
Banana Industry? – Non
Transparency? – Non
Ross University? – Non
Law and order. – Non
Poverty for the masses? – Oui
Ministers getting richer? – Oui
Gigantic castles being built? -Oui
Increase in immorality? – Oui
Selling of our heritage? – Oui
Partiality towards the elite? – Oui
Your Excellency, Dominica needs a change and if this is achievable by fair election, then wouldn’t this be great for the masses?
Isn’t it time that DA started tapping into the wealth of expertise, knowledge and skill which are currently not being used because of political affiliation.
So, please let’s implement the changes which have been…
Felix Gregoire can hardly be considered an impartial party as he is beholden to Roosevelt Skerrit for his exalted station in life. I heard his radio appeal an it was clear to me that he was reading from a carefully crafted script without once mentioning that our elections were found to be free but far from fair.
He who pays the Piper calls the tune. Felix, please eamine your conscience. I hate to think your soul is for sale.
He has become Faust to his master Doctor Mephilostopheles.
Dominica’s election might be peaceful and free but they are not fair. Skerrit buying votes in exchange for houses, envelopes, building materials, red clinic cheques, free tickets and and and… is hardly fair. Spending millions on campaigning when the other spend thousands is hardly fair. The refusal of cleaning of the register is hardly fair!
Guess what Ambassador every other country in CARRICOM that has implemented electoral reform has done so peacefully, there has also been change in the governance of those countries, not a single one of them sought to legalize “Cheating and Bribery” expect this DLP administration. I am appalled at your contribution and wished you had provided competent advise to this disfuntional administration before the people take matter into their own hands.
All I can write is that this anti-truth from someone who I can’t call a man is of the father of lies the devil from the pit of hell! This another member of the rogues who wants to continue protecting their sucking of the Island!!!
The election might be peaceful and free but it sure ain’t fair!!!
Skerrit and the DLP knows they have failed us after 20 years but to cover their failure, Skerrit ran in front and fired 8 ministers and 5 candidates, some of whom had not even contested an election. But Skerrit should have fired all of them, including himself because as PM and Finance Minister the failures start with him. But We understand why he couldn’t fire himself, Ian, Reggie, and Blackmoore is because they know they need to be in hiding and the best place to hide is in a government office that gives them a Diplomatic passport. How could a government allow a 40 year old business like Ross to go and say nothing? Not even in the US a president would survive far less a third world country. But they had to force Ross out because Ross was in their way just as a criminal on the run would do anything to remove upstacles in their way. To give them 5 more years would only help them hide themselves better and deeper, while Dominica plunges deeper and deeper in hell. We need them out
These supposedly good citizens, Félix Gregory, Vince Henderson and others of that ilk are nothing more than crooks, bandits and deplorables dressed in jacket and tie and falsely packaged to the unsuspecting public as desirables. These two men, from their pronouncements, have lost their consciences. The electoral reforms should include, but not limited to, complete re-registration of voters (to be done only in Dominica), complete disclosure of sources of finance for any political campaign, voter’s ID not national ID, bribery of voters strictly prohibited (no more sponsored free plane ride by any political party ), etcetera. Only the DLP seems mortally afraid of fair and sensible electoral reforms. These will give no party an unfair advantage but will only create a level playing field and a stronger democracy. For Dominica to shine again, the doers of evil have to GO!
All I will say is, Aliereza Monfared was a Skerrit ambassador until he was arrested and jailed in Iran for some of the worse crimes against country. Yet before his arrest, Roosevelt Skerrit (though there was enough information out to say he was wanted), described him and introduced him to Dominicans as a good gentleman that loved Dominica and wants to help Dominica? Did he help Dominica or destroyed our image? Maybe he helped Skerrit and those that were hiding him but he sure hurt our image badly! In fact so bad that apart from hurricane Maria, his arrest as an Ambassador of Dominica was the only time I saw an article about Dominica on BBC, CNN, FOX, ABC, NBC, CNBC, the observer, the Gleaner, Antigua news, St, Kitts news, Brenada news, St. Lucia News, St. Vincent News, BVI news, Nigeria news, Caribbean news online, Iran news, France news, Greece, in fact almost every country under the sun reported it. So when Felix Gregoire talks as a Skerrit appointed ambassador it holds NO water
First of all i will defy protocol and resist addressing you as Honorable anything!
De nerve of an ambassador recording words like de citizens of Dominica should not get carried away with electoral reform for History to document is shameful and insulting to say the least!
Your words are recorded for History class.
De official body mandated by our constitution to conduct and reform elections is not de DLP……it is de Electoral Commission…..you doing a serious disservice to the minds of our students who finished high school only last week! Sickening, irresponsible and insulting!
By now i should think that you and your DLP have expressed that opinion with the Bishop and all you pray on it!
Let de chips fall where it may….dog going to bite somebody this coming election…….DLP in government too long to not see a clear chance at a win……you need to put out a magazine of your proud accomplishments in office with beaming pride…..not even 1 hotel!!!
sick!!!!!
These educated stooges who are intent on staying relevent while milking the country bone dry will face justice one day. I have to see these guys walk the streets of Roseau unrecognizable. Wickedness does not pay Mr. Gregoire
1. Let’s make it plain and simple. If election reform takes place the DLP is sure of being defeated, though they will be defeated with or without reform. In other words, with election reform they have a 99.9% chance of defeat whereas without reform they have a 75% chance of defeat.
Now when they get out the likes of Vince Henderson, Felix Gregoire and others will be left without the huge salary they have gotten accustomed to and, even worse, there will be investigations into so many things and these guys most likely will be left wanted. So they have to fight it as much as they can.
2.”… peaceful and free.” Who ever said our elections were not peaceful and free? The BIG word he is cleverly avoiding is “FAIR”. The report says our election was free but not altogether fair. So ambassador let’s deal with the fair aspect of it.
3.Who recommended identification cards to the government? Sir, there is a difference between an identification card and voters card. WE NEED VOTERS…
Gregoire we all know that your appointment to your position was a political one. Of course, we don’t expect you to put your second pension in jeopardy. I have to tell you that right now I think you talking pure BS and I don’t think you even believe that hogwash you trying to feed us.
Next thing you will say Skerrit was within his right to announce to junior clerks that he going to do them a shawetay and appoint 40 something of them.
” Felix Gregoire has advised the public to avoid getting carried away by electoral reform. ”
Shut up Felix!
You are nothing more than another old butt-kissing puppet to Roosevelt Skerrit: that is not the song you sang recently when alleged election fraud has taken place in Dominica.
How soon do shallow people like you forget!
Your pink slip is on its way, you will eventually go home and suck salt, and eat roast bananas as you were accustom; sorry there are no welfare line in Dominica, and Roosevelt will not be around in government to give you a handout.
Why don’t you shut up, if you don’t have anything significant to bray about?
Somebody needs to tell Wesley to stop singing .
his plate Is already full.
he cant even eat all his super .
but again maybe he is singing for off springs supper .
Mister dem really wicked ein .
Supposedly educated man dat , but lissen to him .
Felix Gregoire is giving the impression that the electoral process is more or less OK and there is little need for voter ID cards and cleaning the lists..He does also challenge the opposition forces for their omission of not reviewing the lists themselves to find dead persons and others who may not be eligible to vote Why are the opposition forces and civil society not doing that?? Gregoire has reserved comment on the civil society meeting report because he has not seen a signed copy,,Well send him a signed copy
What is wrong with these people? Why are they so scared of having a fair election? Why do we need to invoke dead people to vote?
Come on let’s have a fair and clean election and may the best party win.
Gregoire your wimpish, and irascible little boy of Skerrit, why have you joined your master as an inveterate and compulsive liar? The Commonwealth Election Observer team told us election 2014 was free but not necessarily fair..Then they went on to give the myriad of reasons like: bribery, abuse of incumbency, lack of campaign finance reform,etc..Did Skerrit beat you on your behind to have you come on here and shamelessly spew unadulterated horse manure? Your quintessential deceiptful soul. Stop insulting our intelligence, you churlish and waspish little adulator of a corrupt man!!!
You will soon stop milking the cow!!!
Your educated idiot,!! I have no respect for wicked souls like you, because you know better!
Skerrit Must Go
Skerrit Must Go
LAZY Skerrit Must Go Now