The focus of the nation this week has been on Constituency No 4 and the NGO report in connection with this electoral battlefield, according to the NGO observers. The reason why Constituency No 4 was such a battleground was that Prime Minister Douglas had a personal interest in preventing constituent Lindsay Grant from winning the seat. Grant was not competing with him, he was running in St. Pauls and its companion villages in No 6, but because that area was a safe seat he was able to divert his immediate attention from how the voting progressed in his own area.

From eyewitness reports, Dr. Douglas spent the better part of election day in Constituency No 4 doing the unprecedented thing of making his presence felt in the area. The person who actually ran for the seat was quite overshadowed by the presence of Dr. Douglas who behaved very much as though he and not Ghost Phillip was running for his seat. The eyewitness accounts were corroborated by that of the NGO coalition who observed on page 6 of their report:

"Major concerns were raised by a number of voters and security personal about the disruption of the poll in Constituency 4 (Half Way Tree) by the presence of the Labour Party candidate for Constituency 6. The candidate appeared to have been fully participating in some of the altercations surrounding the presence of St. Paul's residents in election lines for Constituency 4. Eyewitness testimony affirm that the candidate was adamant that such St. Paul residents, who are actually residents in his home Constituency 6, should be allowed to vote regardless of the fact that they did not reside anywhere in Constituency 4.

This disruptive presence by Dr Denzil Douglas was responsible, in large measure for the prolonged interruption of traffic flow in and out of Half Way Tree, resulting in some motorists and voters having to detour through treacherous terrain in the farmlands of Half Way Tree in order to arrive on time at home or at the polls.

Voters felt that instances such as this should not be allowed to happen and set a bad example for our people when the head of the government is facilitating and advocating voter irregularities of this nature. Some voters said that such situations only added to the difficulty in getting our young people to look up to government leaders as role models when they are actually undeserving of the respect they demand.

One NGO observer witnessed a conversation between Dr. Denzil Douglas and the military, in which he berated them for their failure to collect voters from Constituency 6 in order for them to vote in Constituencies 4 and 5. Most of the disruptive incidents took place in Constituency 4 during the afternoon period of the poll."

Since Dr. Douglas did a similar thing in 2004 when he assumed an obligation to prevent Grant from winning that same seat, it must be clear to all that he has had more than just a partisan interest in the matter and that he was motivated by a deep and unspeakable hatred for Lindsay Grant. It was obvious also during the last elections that Douglas was trying very hard to transmit his personal hatred of Grant to many of his supporters and it is just as obvious that he found many in his No. 6 constituency, who were sufficiently gullible to conspire in a plot to frustrate both Lindsay Grant and the people of Constituency No. 4.

To this sordid end therefore it was arranged months before the election from persons who lived in Constituency No. 6 to have their names registered in No. 4 but on election day many people were shocked to discover that persons who lived in Constituency No. 3 were also a part of that conspiracy and turned up to vote in No. 4. What seemed to have happened was that while those from Newton Ground, St. Pauls, Dieppe Bay, Parsons and Saddlers voted for Dr. Douglas in Constituency No 4, those from the Village disgruntled at Mr. Sam Condor, decided to transfer their votes to No. 4.

It is easy to understand why Dr. Douglas supporters of No. 6 should break the law, defy all the dire warnings about the penalty for breaking the electoral law, and risk long jail sentences and high fines to vote where they did not live. It clearly is an act of cross stupidity for a citizen to fill out a form with a misleading address to vote not for a candidate of his/her choice but a candidate chosen for him/her by some smart political leader.

Against the background of these peoples' object dependency on the political for everything from a drink of liquor, a cell phone top up and God knows what else, it is not very difficult to understand why they would expose themselves to such serious trouble. And expose themselves they did for there they are captured on video at polling stations in No. 4. Some of them are easily spotable. They are well known, they are activists in No. 6, their faces are defiant and disrespectful for they know that what they were doing was wrong and punishable by large fines and long jail terms.

But they were egged on to break the law by the leader who told them that he is supreme and that nobody has the power to put them in jail or charge them a fine. The part which Dr. Douglas played in this game of fraudulence must not be minimised. He must go down as the chief architect of this crooked scheme to pack one constituency with excess voters from No 6 in order to affect a result not intended by the true voters of No. 4.

Dr. Douglas did not hide to play his part, the bully that he portrays himself to be would not let him operate from the shadows as most crooks do. He came forward in the broad light of day and showed the world that he did not care one arse what the rest of the country thought of his reprehensible conduct. He had his army supporting him brandishing their hardware protecting the interlopers as they illegally voted in Constituency 4 where they had never lived.

Douglas and his army displayed an unnecessary level of force. The young people of the constituency had much more sense that Douglas credited them with. They were not only more sensible but much better behaved than the people of No. 6. For whereas nobody could dare go into No. 6 and vote illegally, without getting all parts of themselves broken, the young people who lived in No. 4 simply took quiet notice of the travesty and have prepared themselves to give evidence in the civilised corridors of the court house before al learned judge.

Mr. Lindsay Grant is reported to have presented a case which will shortly be tried in the court. He is also reported to have listed as respondents a list of names who wilfully or knowingly aided and abetted the crookedness than went on in No. 4 under the guise of an election. A comprehensive list of the alleged illegal voters has also been cited in the presentation. Dr. Douglas is however not listed but his does not mean that he will be a dispassionate observer.

Dr. Douglas deserves a far deeper involvement in the aftermath of his self-made fiasco than just dispassionately observing. He deserves to answer more serious charges and efforts should be made to call on him to answer now.