KINGSTON, Jamaica—Election watchdog Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) has hailed the late Dr Alfred Sangster, its first chairman, for his sterling leadership to the organisation.

Sangster, who was also a former University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica president passed away on Monday at age 95.

“He provided sterling leadership to our fledgling organisation, navigating the arrangements for getting international support for CAFFE’s work while dealing with suspicions from the political parties. He also brought a reputation for integrity which made it easier for CAFFE to recruit two thousand or so volunteers to monitor the December 1997 General Elections. But, most importantly, he provided standards of strength and fairness in the leadership of

CAFFE, which the organisation has worked assiduously to maintain over these many years,” CAFFE said in a release on Thursday.

It noted that Sangster was one of the 16 concerned Jamaicans who met with Archbishop Edgerton Clarke on April 9, 1997, to discuss the perilous state into which Jamaica’s electoral machinery had fallen and what could be done about it. At that meeting, the decision to form a local election observer group was taken and less than five months later CAFFE was founded with Sangster as its chairman.

“While we in CAFFE, remember him, especially as our first chairman, we recognise as well the generous service he provided to the entire Jamaican community, in particular in his leadership of one of our most important educational institutions, the College of Arts Sciences and Technology, (CAST) now the University of Technology (UTech), of which he was the first principal and eventually its first president. Dr Sangster also, was a public commentator and, as such, had an important impact on the development of Jamaica in the post-independence period,” the organisation added.

CAFFE said Jamaica has lost a truly great son of the soil and offered its condolences to his family and friends with whom “we mourn his passing.”