HONOLULU (AP) – The decision to cancel an election for Native Hawaiian self-government and skip ahead to a convention has many questioning whether the effort has a chance at achieving anything.
Nai Aupuni, the organization guiding the election process, on Tuesday terminated the election to select 40 delegates who would meet at a convention and come up with a plan for self-determination for Native Hawaiians. Instead, all 196 candidates will be offered seats at the convention, planned for four weeks starting in February.
“The process is just falling apart and it’s getting embarrassing,” said Walter Ritte, a Native Hawaiian activist who ended his short-lived campaign as a delegate candidate because he felt Nai Aupuni was pushing Native Hawaiians toward federal recognition.
Suddenly taking away the opportunity to vote for delegates makes a mockery of any effort toward self-governance, said Native Hawaiian community advocate Trisha Keahaulani Watson-Sproat, who has been a vocal critic of Nai Aupuni.
“I don’t know how anybody is supposed to take any of this seriously at this point,” she said. “I mean, it has the integrity of a Costco membership.”