MR. JUSTIN MC CLAIR DANIEL
- Mr. Daniel started his electoral career in the early 1960s, along with his deceased friend and Supervisor of Elections, Mr. Albert G. Hinkson. During that time he served in the capacity of both Registration Officer and Returning Officer for the Castries Central Electoral District.
- He became the first person appointed to serve as Chief Elections Officer under the New Constitution Order of Saint Lucia in May 1979, a mere two months before the July 2, General Elections. An enormous challenge but he got the job done.
- In April 1982, he experienced his second baptism of fire when he faced the challenge of conducting two general elections in the same month, three weeks apart. This was truly the test of knowledge, strength and experience in management and organizational skills. With the resolve of his experience staff, he was able to successfully meet the challenges of these elections without question.
- He was responsible for transforming the operations of the electoral office on a part-time basis to a fully fledged agency, establishing various permanent units of the organization.
- He introduced many registration and election procedures currently in use today at the department and single-handedly wrote the training manuals for election officers.
- He gained the respect and admiration of his colleagues in the electoral fraternity locally, regionally and internationally.
- Served as the first President of Organization of Chief Elections’ Officers established by CARICOM.
- He was signatory to the Charter that established the Association of Electoral Organizations of Central America and the Caribbean (TIKAL PROTOCOL) in September, 1985.
- Attended many overseas workshops, seminars and election observation missions on behalf of St. Lucia all over Central and Latin America and as far as Bangladesh.
- He headed the first group of election officers from CARICOM to Haiti to assist in the registration of voters and the preparation of the country’s first fully democratic elections.
- Mr. Daniel was a man of great vision, unique in many ways, was always open to ideas and suggestions from others that he would build on to improve standards and procedures relating to elections.
- He will always be remembered as a man who was not afraid to take decisions and mind you, he hardly made bad decisions, because the electoral process calls for decisive and firm decisions with little room for error.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE
