A minister has warned that fear of intimidation in a London borough is so strong that voters are too scared to go to the police.
Greg Clark, the minister for cities, issued the private warning in a letter disclosed to The Times in which he spoke about fears of retribution in an area dogged by allegations of vote rigging.
He was writing to the head of the Electoral Commission after elections on May 22 in Tower Hamlets, east London, that led to Lutfur Rahman being re-elected as mayor. Mr Clark argued that it was important for local people to be able to contact the police without fearing that their names would be disclosed to the council.
He wrote on May 30: “It is particularly important that any member of the public who has a concern to raise should feel able to report that directly to the police without fear that their identity could fall into the hands of those whom they might think might retaliate in some way — even if such a fear were groundless.”
He warned of “the potential for uncertainty surrounding the experience in Tower Hamlets to be corrosive of confidence in the robustness of electoral registration generally”.
Advertisement
His letter to Jenny Watson, chairwoman of the Electoral Commission, was disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act.
Bangladesh-born Mr Rahman, an independent social democrat, beat his Labour rival by 3,000 votes.
Ms Watson reacted to the minister’s concerns about fears of retaliation, writing to him: “This would obviously be a very serious matter albeit one that extends significantly beyond the remit or responsibility of the Electoral Commission.” She sent copies of the minister’s letter to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner.
Mr Rahman’s victory is being challenged by a cross-party group of voters whose High Court election petition makes a string of allegations, including intimidation.
The petition claims that Mr Rahman or his representatives engaged in a campaign of intimidation against anybody considering helping his opponents or PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which is investigating alleged corruption in the borough.
Advertisement
Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, sent the auditors in to Tower Hamlets but had to extend their deadline to report back, blaming the council for delays.
Mr Rahman said: “I firmly reject any claims of intimidation and will be contesting them in court. If anyone has felt intimidated, I encourage them to make a report to the police. I should point out that there are many claims in the election petition, but little evidence. With regards to the PwC investigation, a prompt investigation is in the interests of all involved, not least the council, as it is us who are footing the bill for it. Inspections do take time though, and we also want it to be fair and thorough.”
The High Court has given the mayor until next month to respond to the claims in the petition.
The election count at Tower Hamlets took five days, but Ms Watson wrote to Mr Clark that the commission’s assessment of Tower Hamlets’ electoral registration showed it “exceeded each of the commission’s published performance standards”.
Electoral Commission papers refer to an election protocol put in place by the council. Commission documents say this protocol aimed to limit the risk of “spurious allegations” during the elections by requiring complaints to be addressed to the returning officer, a council employee, so he “can weed out obviously vexatious or inappropriate allegations”. Peter Golds, the leader of the council’s Conservative group, told The Times: “That’s not his job. His job is to be impartial, not to sit there deciding what’s vexatious.”
Advertisement
Tower Hamlets council said the returning officer had passed all matters to the police, except “those where the inquiry was a straightforward registration or query that could be resolved quickly by the returning officer’s staff”.
The council said there was no evidence that people were unwilling to report concerns to the police and that it was “highly misleading” to state that it took five days to complete the count as the delays were caused by a higher than expected turnout, cross-party voting, close contests and elaborate security and anti-fraud measures.
Scotland Yard responded to The Times’s inquiries about Mr Clark’s warning of intimidation by re-issuing an old press release stating that “there is no evidence that any criminal offences have been committed”.
An Electoral Commission review of May’s elections said the council had significant lessons to learn from the count and gave the authority until this month to make improvements. It has previously claimed that election problems in Tower Hamlets were exaggerated.
At the 2010 general election, when The Times found fictitious names on the electoral roll and a journalist from The Independent was beaten when investigating the claims, the commission blamed media reports that “create a climate where people think malpractice is more prevalent than it is”.