"Two wrongs don't make a right"

From Saturday's killer editorial in the Telegram:

One degree of separation

In other provinces, the office of chief electoral officer is filled by experienced impartial professionals with a track record of either elections law or past experience organizing elections.

Here, Premier Danny Williams has selected a person not only without those qualifications, but with clear and obvious ties to a political party. In fact, with clear and obvious ties to Williams’ own party.

Williams’ choice for what is supposed to be a politically impartial position is Paul Reynolds, who, among other things, was a director of the PC district association on the day he was picked, a role he has filled for several years.

[...]

Williams’ other defence is that, last time he picked a chief electoral officer, it was former Liberal cabinet minister Chuck Furey.

Well, two wrongs don’t make a right.

And they don't.

Which is why it's disturbing that Danny Williams, supposedly a Great Lawyer™ in his former career, has stubbornly, blatantly, and brazenly turned one of the most sensitive posts in any democracy into a patronage post.

Apart from the Telegram's tilting at this particular windmill, there has been little dissent within Dannyland, and no attention from outside. Under the circumstances, with Great Lawyer™ enjoying unprecedented, and wholly undeserved, popular support*, someone should be speaking for the minority.

But who is?

It's bad enough that Reynolds has a known partisan pedigree. It's utterly unforgiveable that he is also former president of the incumbent governing party, and held, up until being nominated for this NON-PARTISAN post, a member of one of that party's district associations.

This is the sort of anti-democratic behaviour that raises concerns in the Third World or in backsliding neo-democracies like Russia.

It should raise concerns in Newfoundland and Labrador, too.

Which is why it's even more disturbing that two on-line polls — and yes, take them with a grain of salt given the 8th Floor's concern about torquing such things, but come on, people! — as of the time of this posting, show 38% have no problem with, or no opinion on, the way the Chief Electoral Officer's post is filled, or that 70% agree with, or are agnostic about, the way it just was filled.

Those who despair about the provincial economy already had enough to worry about with the Danny Williams Regime. And yes, given that it is not administering or governing much these days, "Regime" is a wholly warranted choice of words.

Those who worry about his pseudo-separatist inclinations gained a lot more to worry about this past week with the massive escalation in the rhetoric, and the inversely proportional meltdown in the maturity level.

And now, there are legitimate fears for the integrity of the very democratic process which, starting with the October provincial election, and perhaps concluding with the long-whispered-about and much (in certain circles) dreamed-of referendum, will go a long way, if Danny is successful, towards advancing those inclinations.

Where is the criticism? Where is the dissent?

And why, in respect of a province of Canada, is it becoming ever more natural and comfortable to use the word "dissent"?

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* Popular support: A question for the pollsters to ponder — is it not even a little possible that, in the existing climate, interview subjects, being phoned of a spring evening, out of the blue, by someone they don't know, are actually afraid to admit they don't support or agree with Danny Williams?