The Court of Appeal has ordered that Supervisor of Elections, Sylvia Findlay-Scrubb, her agents or servants not destroy documents pertaining to the Dec. 9, 2015 election in Central Leeward and North Windward until the hearing of an appeal related to the results there.
Justice Louise Blenman made the order on Dec. 20, 2016 after lawyers for the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) filed an application asking that the election chief be restrained from destroying the documents.
In keeping with the law, a supervisor of elections in St. Vincent and the Grenadine can destroy election documents one year after the election.
The NDP, however, is challenging the election results in North Windward and Central Leeward, which election officials say were won by the Unity Labour Party, which was returned to a four term in office by a single-seat majority.
The NDP filed the petitions after the elections but they were thrown out of court last year as improperly filed and the party is appealing that ruling.
The hearing of the appeal is being delayed as lead counsel for the government, Dominican Senior Counsel, Anthony Astaphan, says he has to travel to Miami this month for his annual medical and would not be available until Feb. 23.
“I simply cannot, for obvious reasons that I have indicated, deal with it before,” he said on Boom FM on Thursday, during which he also spoke about the December 2016 ruling.
“We have no difficulty with the court’s order. We are not appealing it, we are not doing anything with it and I indicated to the court last night… that the appeal is ready for hearing and that my first available opportunity to deal with it would be the 23rd of February,” Astaphan said.
It is obvious to everyone that the ULP cheated on the election and they have most certainly already destroyed documents. The sad part is that the ULP is dragging this out as long as possible, knowing that the NDP cannot afford the legal costs and the ULP can continue to use tax-payer’s money to fund their side.
It is not like the US election where Donald Trump spent far less money and defeated the corrupt establishment in spite of evidence that Hillary Clinton had illegal immigrants and dead people votes, totaling 3-7 million illegal votes. Trump won because over 80% of those that voted, voted for him. in SVG it is too close. The NDP may have gotten 55% of the vote but that is not enough to overcome election fraud. It is just sad what they did to Ben Exeter.
Those records should have been taken into the custody of the Court a long time age to protect them from?