Away from the eyes of the public and the media, and without even a prior announcement, a new chairman was sworn in for the Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC), just days before Sir Gerald Watt was to return to head the body. Sir Gerald, who has headed the commission for five years, is now expected to be an ordinary member when he goes back, while Juno Samuel who joined the commission near five months ago, will be the new chairman. Samuel took the oath of office at Government House in a ceremony that the media had not even been invited to. It was very much the opposite of what had taken place when an interim chairman, deputy and commissioner were sworn in to fill in for Sir Gerald Watt, Nathaniel ‘Paddy’ James and Lionel ‘Max’ Hurst who were on suspension pending a tribunal’s investigation into their conduct. That August 16 ceremony, at which Samuel was also sworn in as a permanent member, was a well-publicized and open event.
It was actually Samuel, and not the Governor General’s office, that confirmed to a local radio station that he had been sworn in. He said he had accepted an offer from Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer to head the commission and intended to make sure “the institution delivers to the people of Antigua and Barbuda the best possible product, meaning that it must be able to conduct elections and all that goes with it so that the people of Antigua and Barbuda can have confidence in the whole process”. Samuel dismissed any concern about confrontation with Sir Gerald. “I’m not in the business of talking about people or their egos or whatever. I’m there to serve the people of Antigua and Barbuda and to make sure that the fiasco that we had during the last elections does not occur again. That will be my focus,” he told Observer Radio.
Sir Gerald’s demotion has come despite a tribunal clearing both him and Nathaniel “Paddy” James of any wrongdoing. The panel had been set up after Prime Minister Spencer requested the investigation into the two, along with Hurst, citing their failures in the last general election and the partisan behaviour of Hurst towards the opposition Antigua Labour Party (ALP). In a report that was finally made public by Governor General Dame Louise Lake-Tack in December, the panel said it could find no grounds for Sir Gerald or James to be dismissed, while it recommended Hurst’s removal. Dame Louise had advised Sir Gerald and James to return to ABEC on January 10, although Sir Gerald had insisted that they should be reinstated immediately.