As Dominica prepares for an upcoming general election that has not yet been scheduled, a prominent Dominican business leader is calling for a complete overhaul of the country’s top electoral body to rescue crumbling public trust in its democratic process. In an open letter published by Dominica News Online on April 8, 2026, Gregor Nassief – chairman and chief executive officer of GEMS Holdings Ltd., a well-known hospitality executive, and a longtime public critic of the current administration – has outlined a cascade of systemic failures plaguing the island’s electoral commission and demanded the immediate resignation of all five commission members.
Nassief’s grievances center on the botched rollout of 2025 electoral reforms, which were originally passed by parliament in March of that year with the stated goal of modernizing voter registration and introducing a new universal voter ID system. Contrary to the reform’s intended purpose, Nassief documents that voter registration was fully halted the exact day the legislation was signed into law, and the suspension remained in place for a full 355 days. During this year-long pause, multiple local elections were held across the country, a fact that leads Nassief to question whether tens of thousands of eligible voters were effectively barred from exercising their democratic right to participate.
After registration finally resumed on March 9, 2026, Chief Elections Officer Anthea Joseph released an official audio statement framing the restart as an encouraging success, claiming that a large number of new and returning voters had visited registration stations. Joseph also defended the year-long pause, arguing it was a necessary measure to strengthen confidence in electoral processes and guarantee equal access for all eligible voters.
But Nassief’s open letter directly contradicts these official claims. He cites on-the-ground data showing that, as of April 8, only a tiny fraction of the roughly 13,000 applicants seeking to confirm their existing voter details and 350 newly registered voters have had their applications fully processed. He also raises major red flags about the integrity of the current voter roll, pointing to a stark discrepancy that calls the commission’s competence into question: the official list includes 75,000 registered voters, while the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) estimates Dominica’s total voting-age population is just 55,000. Nassief attributes this 20,000-voter gap to thousands of outdated, unremoved entries – including people who have died and citizens who have permanently emigrated from the island.
A second critical failure highlighted by Nassief is the persistent, months-long delay in issuing the new voter ID cards that were the centerpiece of the 2025 reforms. Even though the voter confirmation process launched in October 2025, not a single applicant has received their new ID card as of the date of his letter. Applicants who registered after the March 2026 restart have also waited weeks without any approval or issuance, Nassief says, noting that these delays completely defeat the purpose of the reform package and fuel growing public skepticism that the commission can run a free and fair election.
Notably, Nassief’s criticisms echo public admissions from Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit himself, who called the year-long registration suspension a serious administrative lapse during parliamentary remarks in February 2026. While the Electoral Commission has argued that the pause was necessary to install a new computerized registration system and update eligibility rules, Skerrit rejected this justification. He pointed out that the commission was legally required to continue registration via manual or legacy systems even if new technology was not ready, a step the body never chose to take. The prime minister added that the result of this inaction was a year-long interruption of a statutory parliamentary process that was explicitly meant to remain continuous.
Against this backdrop of cross-party criticism, Nassief is calling for nothing less than a full reset of the country’s electoral leadership. Under Dominica’s constitution, the five-member Electoral Commission is structured to be an independent body: its chair is appointed by the president acting on independent judgment, while four additional members are appointed by the president on the advice of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition. The commission works alongside a chief elections officer, also appointed by the president, and holds formal responsibility for all aspects of voter registration and election conduct for the island’s parliamentary seats.
In recent months, electoral officials have attempted to address growing public discontent by rolling out mobile registration stations across island communities and adjusting ID requirements, urging citizens to take advantage of the new systems to secure their voting rights. As early as February 2026, the Dominica Bar Association also issued a public call for procedural reviews to expand voter participation, joining a growing chorus of institutional critics.
But Nassief argues incremental adjustments are no longer sufficient. The only path to restoring public trust, he says, is for the entire current commission to step down, and for a newly reconstituted commission with the competence and public credibility needed to fix years of operational failures to be appointed in their place. He also stressed that any new commission must be given sufficient time to address the outstanding backlog of applications, clean up the bloated voter roll, and issue all pending ID cards before a general election date is announced. A second key priority he outlines is a comprehensive public education campaign to ensure all Dominican citizens understand the new registration and confirmation procedures, without which even well-designed reforms will fail in practice.
Framing his proposals as a defense of Dominican democracy, Nassief emphasized that public confidence in electoral processes cannot be rebuilt through empty official assurances alone. It can only be earned through consistent, transparent, and efficient administration of the voting system, he argued. Until those basic standards are met, widespread public doubt about the fairness of upcoming elections will persist.
As of the publication of Nassief’s open letter, Dominica News Online reported that it had received no response to requests for comment from the Electoral Commission.
