Dominica elected its first female head of state on Wednesday, overshadowed by opposition efforts to derail the “historic moment” and increasing the prospect of the case winding up in court here.
Dominican parliamentarians voted 20-5 in favor of 58-year-old Sylvanie Burton, the administration’s choice, who faced a challenge from Anette Sanford. Six government ministers and one opposition politician were missing for different reasons.
On October 2, she will be sworn in.
Both ladies, ironically, are from the Kaliangoo Territory, where ancestors of the country’s original people, the Caribs, still live.
However, the win was overshadowed by an effort by opposition member Sean Douglas to dispute whether Burton had satisfied the conditions for nomination under the Dominica Constitution, saying that she was still working as a senior public worker.
“The nominee has engaged in certain acts which offend the Public Service Act , in which if she is President warrant her removal from office and as such the House should not proceed on the election of the President as Sylvanie Burton being a candidate or nominee,” he said.
However, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who bemoaned the lack of unity in the selection for the island’s 12th head of state since independence in 1978, questioned the facts offered by Douglas.
“All of what the Senator would have said in his arguments to the House to indicate that the candidate Sylvanie Burton is not qualified cannot stand,” he added, noting that she had departed from the government on September 11 of this year.
“What I would say to the Senator and I would ask him to research the very same arguments he is making in respect to Mrs Sylvanie Burton…is to ask him whether he has also investigated the qualification or disqualification of the Leader of the Opposition’s candidate and whether he is aware…that the arguments he is using against Mrs Sylvanie Burton that his candidate is in violation of that section of the Constitution” .
Skerrit requested a five-minute pause of Parliament to enable Douglas to study the answer, but when the session began, he was unable to answer the question, with Opposition Leader Jesma Paul Victor backing the decision to proceed with the balloting procedure.
However, Speaker Joseph Isaac reminded MPs that the subject might go to the Court of Appeal, stating that he had sought clarity on the point brought by the opposition politician before to today’s session of Parliament.
“I said this morning we were a little late because…we were dealing with the same qualification issue,” he said, adding, “first and foremost, the qualification jurisdiction has to be at the High Court, the Court of Appeal.”
“So the House is not going to deal with the issue of qualification, we are going to proceed with the voting for the President,” Isaac said.
Skerrit hailed the departing president for offering “a service of distinction, a service of commitment, a service of love of nation, and a service to a country so vast, so profound, so sincere” after the vote.
Skerrit, on the other hand, expressed disappointment that Burton’s victory did not provide a chance “for us to rally around one candidate and show the world that on some things there can be unity of purpose.”
“There should have been no reason for there to be only one candidate.” But, in any case, it is the democratic process, and everyone has the freedom to choose how and when they do things.”
Skerrit said that it has not deprived Dominica of the chance to make history and that “for the first time in our country’s history, a woman has been recognized and elevated to this high office.”
Most significantly, he said, it would not deprive the Kalinago people, “the first people of our country, of an opportunity that was lost in terms of the process, not the outcome, of having the first Kalinago person elected to our country’s highest office.”
“I will say that those who did not support the Kalinagoo people in this effort to recognize them will be forgotten by history.” It will not recognize them warmly, therefore we will not concentrate on the bad side of things, but rather on the good side,” said Skerrit, characterizing today’s election as “a red letter day for the Kalinago people.”
“I believe that every woman in Dominica, and indeed the entire world, should be celebrating today…this historic occasion of a woman being elected, and not just any woman, as we would say, but someone who has come from very, very difficult and humble beginnings.”
“I believe by this act, the Parliament, we have shattered all semblance of remembrance of classism in Dominica,” stated Prime Minister Skerrit, who was “emotional” at the time.
Mrs Burton has been a senior public official since 2014, and she was the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Rural Modernisation, Kalinago Upliftment, and Constituency Empowerment until she resigned.
She has 25 years of experience as a Justice of the Peace and a Masters Degree in Project Management as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Rural Development.
She is a married woman with two children.
