Wednesday, January 14, 2015

SEYCHELLES NATIONAL PARTY TO TAKE PART IN ELECTIONS

The party held a press conference to confirm its return to the political scene and to give its views on electoral reform.

The Seychelles National Party (SNP) has confirmed its intention to return to active politics. Indeed, despite its reservations about the outcome of the electoral reform process, the party “will be taking part in the next elections due to be held in 2016”, its leader, Wavel Ramkalawan, announced during a press conference on Thursday.

This follows a peaceful march against vehicle-related taxes it organised on December 29, 2014. “What we have today is not an opposition, it’s just a watchdog of the ruling party”, he denounced. Accordingly, the SNP will organise a series of meetings in the different districts, starting at the end of the month and has already finalised a list of 25 candidates for the National Assembly elections.
 The party also circulated a statement in which it commented the electoral reform anticlimax.



“From the outset, the SNP knew it would not obtain everything that it had set out to accomplish. However, the whole process and its final outcome has one again shown that the Parti Lepep cannot be trusted even when it gives its word. The majority of recommendations of the Electoral Commission (EC) have not been accepted. The Parti Lepep has gone back on its word to participate fairly alongside other parties and not to use its executive power to overrule the final recommendations. Instead they have brought in amendments of their own and going as far as rejecting proposals they made at the forum”, the document averred.

Among the shortcomings indentified by the SNP are the absence of a ceiling for electoral expenses; the decision not to provide assisted voters with two electoral officers to prevent “bullying” by party activists; the need to provide the names and addresses of donors who contribute SCR5 000 and above (“the SNP sees this as a means to scare would-be donors especially those giving to the opposition”); and the denial of financial assistance to political parties as a way of “sustaining the democratic process”. The electoral reform forum wasn’t however a completely fruitless endeavour. The SNP recognised, for instance, that the maintenance of an open voter’s register, the right for persons in remand to vote and the possibility for opposition candidates to campaign on polling day as positive advances.


“The Seychelles National Party fully engages itself in persisting in the fight to strengthen our democracy. As we endeavour to bring about further change in our electoral laws, while at the same time being fully engaged in transforming society and ridding it of all the social ills that are slowly destroying the family, our youth and our vital institutions, we wish to announce today that the SNP will be taking part in the next elections due to be held in 2016”, the statement claimed. And as a way of showing their exemplarity, former SNP members of the National Assembly committed to donate 5% of their pension to the party.

Source:Today