TIMES.VG

BVI, Caribbeanand International News
TIMES.VG

Low voter turnout and why residents lost hope

Low voter turnout and why residents lost hope

The Office of the Supervisor of Elections has confirmed that while some 16,130 residents were registered to vote in the April 24 election, only 9,275 exercised this right. Voter turnout was 57.5 percent. It’s lower than the last election held in 2019.
While many have been stating the likely reasons for the low voter turnout, political commentator Dickson Igwe said, among other things, the issues highlighted in the damning Commission of Inquiry (COI) and the arrest of former Premier Andrew Fahie were two of the major factors which bewildered residents and pushed them away from the polls.

“That lack of trust may have been there well before the start of the very public inquiry. The inquiry simply exacerbated that trust deficiency. It revealed the underbelly of the beast. Subsequent events including the arrest of the previous leader of the country on drug conspiracy charges did not help,” Igwe said in a recent article titled, Low Voter Morale in the Virgin Islands.

Lack of confidence in political system

While public commentator Benito Wheatley thinks one can never be sure of the exact reasons for the lower voter turnout, he does agree that a lack of confidence in the political system played a role in interest shown by the electorate.

“Those persons who did not vote lost confidence in the political system. They feel the political system does not work for them and see no point in voting,” Wheatley told BVI News. He also added that the behaviour of candidates on the campaign trail may have scarred some residents.

“Persons were turned off by the mudslinging that occurred during the election campaign [and] persons found they could not support the platform of any of the political parties and were not satisfied with the choice of candidates,” Wheatley stated.

While many stayed away, those who voted clearly found hope in the new candidates they elected to the House of Assembly: Dr Karl Dawson, Luce Hodge-Smith, Stacy ‘Buddha’ Mather, and Lorna Smith, who won as a National Democratic Party (NDP) candidate but hours later formed an alliance with the VIP to become Deputy Premier.

Although many see these new lawmakers as the hope of the BVI, some feel like the last-minute alliance of Lorna Smith and the VIP has served a fresh blow to the psyche of the people and will likely lead to further disenfranchisement within the community.

Igwe agrees with this assertion, stating that “anger remains as the outcry at a politician crossing the floor and enabling the Virgin Islands Party to form the government showed.”

As the debates and fallouts from the election continue, Igwe urged politicians to take the low voter turnout seriously by engaging people at the “grassroots” over the next four years.

He said any political entity that improves morale will see favourable results at the polls.

“The party and politician that causes low morale to improve will increase turnout in their favour. That will be a trump card in four years. That means engaging with voters at grassroots level daily over four years, and not just at election season,” Igwe stated.
AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.VG
Close
0:00
0:00
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
Elon Musk Meets Chinese Finance Minister in Beijing
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
If you donated to BLM, you got played
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Last Walmart in North Portland Closing Down
Florida's DeSantis seeks to disqualify judge in Disney case
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines calls the British monarchy "an absurdity" he wants to remove in his lifetime
King Charles III being crowned.
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
US Congresswoman threaten Twitter Files journalist with arrest
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slams New York Times' pro-government stance and treatment of sources
Enough is enough: it's time to end the war in Ukraine. While Russia may be to blame for starting it, Russia is not the one refusing to stop it
Fox News Settles their case with Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787.5 MILLION
AG decries scapegoating and rushed lawmaking by government
The land of the free violence
×