Electoral commission’s newly appointed members sworn in |04 August 2018
Members of the newly appointed electoral commission were sworn in before President Danny Faure at State House yesterday afternoon.
Members of the new electoral commission (EC) are Luciana Lagrenade (chairperson), who has already been serving as a member of the commission since July last year.
Jenny Adrienne, Patrick Joseph Hoareau, Henry Bastienne, Wendy Didon, Norlis Rose-Hoareau and Veronique Bonnelame-Alcindor. Mrs Bonnelame-Alcindor has been serving as a member of the EC since July last year.
Mrs Bonnelame-Alcindor and Mr Rose-Hoareau were absent at yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony.
Mr Rose-Hoareau will swear in later when he returns from overseas while Mrs Bonnelame-Alcindor was sworn in as a commissioner last year and her mandate continues with the new commission.
Both Mrs Lagrenade and Mrs Bonnelame-Alcindor were appointed EC commissioners in July last year in accordance with the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the Republic, which came into force on April 18, 2017, and which provides for an enlargement of the Electoral Commission from five to seven members.
Present to witness the event were the Attorney General Frank Ally, officials from the President’s office, the chairperson and other members of the Constitutional Appointments Authority (CAA).
Gerard Lafortune, a former member of the EC, was also present.
The new commissioners took the oath of allegiance and official oath.
Members of the new EC were appointed on July 28, a day after the seven-year mandate of the outgoing commission expired. Bernard Elizabeth, Gerard Lafortune, Marie-Therese Purvis and Beatty Hoareau sat on the previous committee along with chairman Hendrick Gappy who resigned on January 26, 2018 pursuant to Article 115C (2) of the Constitution.
President Faure has made the appointments to the new election commission from candidates proposed by the Constitutional Appointments Authority as prescribed in the Constitution. The leader of the opposition was also consulted prior to the appointments.
Speaking to the local press after the swearing in Ms Lagrenade expressed her pride and joy as being the first woman to lead the EC.
“I am really proud and happy but I always believe that a position of leadership should not be gender specific but should be based on a person’s ability, willingness and ability to take the institutions, decide on the direction it should take and the mechanisms required to take it where you want it to be. Those mechanisms should include training of staff, putting in place a monitoring and evaluation mechanism and a continuous programme to continue improving our performances,” Ms Lagrenade stressed.
“It is a great opportunity for me and the team I lead to show that we can uphold what our Constitution states and that we can carry out the responsibilities of the EC to uphold democracy in our country through transparent processes and procedures,” Ms Lagrenade noted.
She went on to add that as the chairperson she has plans to move the EC forward but she refrained from giving any details as she said the new EC is yet to hold its first meeting which would now take place on Monday and it would not be appropriate to divulge that to the press as members have just been sworn in.