CAFFE disagrees with Amnesty

Jeffrey Mordecai (right), vice-chairman of Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), chats with CAFFE directors Dr. Owen Jefferson and Nancy Anderson after a press conference to announce plans for the Local Government elections at the Election Centre, Hope Road yesterday. Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

CITIZENS ACTION for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), the local non-partisan election monitoring group, has added its voice to those disagreeing with a recent Amnesty International report that dubbed last October's general election excessively violent.

CAFFE, which will release its own report on the elections within the next 10 days, said instead that its own observations did not support such a high level of political killings as related to the election.

The Amnesty 2003 report stated that the election of October 16 was accompanied by an increase in politically-motivated violence, with at least 60 people killed in the days leading up to election day. The report charged that supporters of the two main political parties attacked each other's events.

"I dont know how they arrived at that, I dont know ... but the general consensus was that it was the best run and least violent election in a long time," CAFFE Chairman Dr. Lloyd Barnett said yesterday at a press conference at the Election Centre, Hope Road.

He said CAFFE had restarted its programme of re-mobilising and recruiting for the June 19 Local Government elections. This, after measuring immense success in the monitoring of the 1997 and 2002 General Elections and the 1998 Local Government elections.

"We are working at achieving wide coverage by our volunteer observers," Dr. Barnett said. He added that: "We hope to have all 2,000 who volunteered for the last general election on board and hope also to attract additional new volunteers."

International observer group the Carter Center is expected to release its report tomorrow.