THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs is standing by its claim that more than 3,000 people voted in the recent elections for members of the Global Jamaica Diaspora councils’ elections despite allegations that this number had been overstated.

Former Jamaican ambassador to the United Nations Curtis Ward has lashed the Government for either being “in denial” or engaging in “deliberate obfuscation” of the numbers of voters in the elections.

According to Ward, 100, and not 3,000 Jamaicans participated in the poll to elect the diaspora council.

“The ministry’s press release grossly misrepresented the reality and can only be perceived as being intended for consumption solely by the Jamaican public to give the impression that the Government’s diaspora policy is successful and that there is broad support for it in the diaspora,” charged Ward.

But responding to questions from the Jamaica Observer at a post-Cabinet media briefing on Wednesday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Kamina Johnson Smith defended the ministry’s numbers.

“I generally trust my ministry’s figures because I don’t know from whence those other figures come,” said Johnson Smith.

“I know that there have been some negative comments that were in the public domain about the election process, and I would simply say to persons who are critical to recognise that this is an entirely new framework for [the] expansion of our engagement with the diaspora.

“We have two new formal processes [and], in fact, in 2019 it was the very first time there had been elections across the board… for the creation of this council that had been approved in the preceding diaspora conference,” added Johnson Smith.

She pointed out that the elections, which were held between January 5 and February 3, brought in new people from not only traditional locations.

Johnson Smith noted that the elections were held as the world was coming out of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and pointed out that a number of regions have been asking for more representatives on the council.

“There will always be criticisms. I don’t think that there is one thing that any Government can do in any country in the world that doesn’t have some basis for criticism, legitimate and less so, but I am very pleased.

“The elections are a new process and we will continue to work on how they can be improved… There are administrative challenges in implementing elections of this nature across different continents and within large diaspora locations where their means of identification is different and their means of engagement [is also] different,” said Johnson Smith as she pointed to the wider complexity of the elections.

The elections were held to elect members of both the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council and the Global Jamaica Diaspora Youth Council.

Established in 2020, the main objective of the councils is to build a mutually beneficial relationship between Jamaica and the Diaspora.

In the lead-up to the elections, state minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Leslie Campbell pointed out that the election process was being handled by five electoral committees in the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom as the ministry does not manage the voting process.

“Whilst we do not specifically oversee the process, we try to ensure that all the relevant mechanisms are in place, including the electoral committees, and that the rules are being followed to protect the legitimacy and integrity of the process,” said Campbell, who has responsibility for diaspora affairs.

Campbell is slated to meet with the new members of the councils this week.