Accompong Town, St. Elizabeth — May 6, 2026
At a town hall meeting in Accompong on Monday evening, Chief Richard Currie laid out his case for the legitimacy of the Maroon community’s 2022 constitution — the same document that now stands to block every known challenger from running against him in the upcoming election. But a close reading of his own words, cross-referenced against the public record, reveals a pattern of shifting claims, convenient timelines, and a constitution whose primary beneficiary appears to be the man who oversaw its creation.
A Rule That Didn’t Apply — Until It Did
The centrepiece of the 2022 constitution is a three-year residency requirement for anyone seeking to become colonel of Accompong. In principle, it sounds reasonable: a leader should live among the people. Currie himself made this case at Monday’s meeting, asking the crowd, “If you don’t live here, how can you be the chief?”
But the history of that rule tells a different story.
By Currie’s own admission at the town hall, the three-year residency requirement existed in the 2004 constitution — and it was deliberately set aside in 2021 to allow him to run. He was transparent about this: had the rule been enforced, he would not have been eligible. He even acknowledged that the rule was fought against precisely because it would have disqualified all candidates at the time, including himself.
Former Colonel Ferron Williams has been more blunt in public statements. Williams told the Jamaica Observer earlier this year that Currie was not living in Accompong when he ran in 2021, that he was not born there and did not grow up there, and that he was only introduced to Williams by an uncle in 2017, after which Williams made him his public relations officer.
So the same residency rule that was treated as an unacceptable barrier to a fair election five years ago has been repackaged and ratified as the foundation of the next one. The only difference is who it now excludes.
The Numbers Keep Changing
At Monday’s town hall, Currie claimed the 2022 constitution received “over a thousand signatures from all the districts.” This is a notable increase from previous accounts, which put the number lower. When a political leader’s signature count grows over time rather than remaining fixed, it raises an obvious question: is the figure being inflated to bolster legitimacy as that legitimacy comes under increasing challenge?
It also invites a more basic question. How many eligible Maroon voters are there in total? Williams told the Jamaica Observer that the genuine number of people on the electoral list is approximately 1,500. If Currie’s current claim of over a thousand signatures is accurate, that would mean roughly two-thirds of the eligible population signed on to a constitution that some districts may never have had a full chance to review — a point Currie himself inadvertently conceded when he told the town hall that posted copies of the document were torn down in some areas. He did not say whether those communities were given replacement copies or additional time.
Still Collecting Signatures in 2026 — for a Document Ratified in 2022?
Perhaps the most striking contradiction comes not from Monday’s meeting but from a Jamaica Observer report in early March 2026, which described Currie hosting a separate meeting where he appealed to residents to support having the 2022 constitution ratified. At that meeting, Currie reportedly told attendees: “We need your signature because we have to move forward in settling a lot of outstanding issues.”
If the constitution was definitively ratified and gazetted four years ago — as Currie has repeatedly claimed — why is he still collecting signatures for it in 2026? Either the document is settled law, as he told the town hall on Monday, or it still requires community buy-in, as he suggested in March. It cannot be both.
Who Ran the Process?
Currie told Monday’s gathering that the constitutional review committee was formed within the first hundred days of his taking office, as agreed during the 2020 mediation with Political Ombudsman Donna Pashman. He described a process that included meetings across districts, public posting of drafts, feedback, revisions, and a town hall before final ratification.
What he did not address — and what no public reporting has clarified — is the composition of the review committee itself. Was it independent of the chief’s office? Who selected its members? Were dissenting voices recorded? Were residents who could not attend given alternative means to participate?
These are not trivial questions. The 2004 constitution, by contrast, was drafted by a constitution committee and the Council of Overseas Maroons, and originally prepared by then-colonel Meredith Rowe over a six-year period from 1998 to 2004. The 2022 revision was completed in roughly nine months under the direct political authority of the sitting chief — the same chief who stood to benefit most from its key provisions.
Signatures Are Not Votes
There is a more fundamental question that has gone largely unasked: was the 2022 constitution ever put to a formal vote?
Currie’s own account — both at Monday’s town hall and in previous public statements — describes a signature-collection process. District meetings were held. Drafts were posted. A town hall took place. And then signatures were gathered. He now claims over a thousand. But collecting signatures on a document is not the same as holding a democratic ballot. A signature can mean many things — acknowledgement, attendance, general support — and can be gathered under varying degrees of social pressure, particularly in a small community where the chief’s authority carries weight.
No public reporting has described a formal ratification vote with secret ballots, a defined electorate, independent oversight, or a clear threshold for passage. If such a vote took place, Currie has never cited it. What he cites are signatures and a gazette publication.
The 2004 constitution, whatever its shortcomings, was formally “concluded and adopted into law” with named witnesses and official signatories in a documented process. The 2022 document appears to have been ratified by petition — a method that conflates awareness with consent and presence with approval.
This distinction matters. A constitution that governs who can and cannot lead a community — that determines the eligibility of every future candidate — demands more than a signature sheet. It demands a clear, documented, democratic mandate. The people of Accompong are entitled to know: was one ever given?
Challengers Locked Out, Process Under Dispute
The practical effect of the three-year rule is now plain. At least two major challengers — Cadien Wallace, a Maroon by birth who spent years overseas, and former Colonel Ferron Williams — have publicly argued they are being unfairly excluded. Wallace has written formally to Currie stating that the 2022 document “has no legitimate standing” and that the 2004 constitution remains the only binding framework.
Williams, who served as colonel for eleven years before Currie defeated him in 2021, has gone further. In April 2026, he and former colonel Meredith Rowe publicly alleged irregularities in the enumeration process, claiming that non-Maroons were being encouraged to register as voters and that the person conducting enumeration was not themselves a Maroon. Williams stated they were in dialogue with a lawyer to seek an injunction to stop the process.
Meanwhile, the person originally designated as chief of elections reportedly withdrew from the role, and efforts to replace them have encountered bureaucratic hurdles. The Electoral Office of Jamaica has said it is awaiting certain particulars from the Accompong Maroons before it can assist.
Currie’s five-year term officially expired on February 18, 2026. He remains in office, citing constitutional authority to call the election at his discretion. His opponents say he is buying time.
“Servants of Other Hands”
At Monday’s town hall, Currie did not engage with any of these specific criticisms. Instead, he described unnamed opponents as “servants of other hands.” He questioned where they were when Hurricane Melissa struck. He urged the community to “check the intentions” of people who had emerged in the last three months.
He also made pointed references to government activity in Accompong — roads being measured, roofing materials distributed from lists he says he did not compile — and suggested a “bigger game at play.” These are serious claims. But they were offered without names, evidence, or specifics, functioning more as political atmosphere than accountability.
This rhetorical approach does important work. By framing any challenge to the constitutional arrangement as disloyalty to the community itself, Currie makes it difficult for ordinary residents — or candidates — to raise concerns without being cast as outsiders or puppets of external forces.
It also sits uneasily alongside Currie’s own history. In 2021, dictatorship accusations surfaced after a resident alleged being assaulted by one of Currie’s security personnel during the shutdown of a party. In September 2022, a council of elders attempted to remove Currie on 27 impeachment charges — an effort Currie dismissed as illegitimate under the constitution. His own former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alex Moore Minott, resigned and later noted that for months there had been no standing council of Maroons.
A pattern emerges: the constitution is invoked as supreme law when it protects Currie’s position, and its provisions are cited selectively when they serve his interests. When the same document’s processes might be used against him, they are declared improperly invoked.
The Question Accompong Must Answer
Currie’s supporters will point to his achievements — international recognition for the sovereignty claim, agricultural initiatives, housing projects. But even these deserve scrutiny. The land rights lawsuit he filed against the government in May 2022 has stalled repeatedly; by January 2023 Currie himself was publicly complaining about delays, and the government moved to have the case struck. More damaging still, his sovereignty posture triggered a Cabinet directive cutting off government funding to areas claiming to be sovereign — which led directly to a US$6.2 million Cockpit Country conservation project being shelved. And after Hurricane Melissa devastated Accompong in October 2025, Currie rejected the government’s offer to send Jamaica Defence Force soldiers to help rebuild, citing sovereignty and internal partnerships. His opponents say that decision left hurricane-displaced residents without the help they needed — while Currie now uses the hurricane as the reason the overdue election has been delayed.
But democratic legitimacy does not rest on achievement alone. It rests on process. And when the same leader who benefited from a rule being waived now enforces that rule against every challenger — after personally overseeing the ratification that cemented it, while the number of signatures supporting it shifts upward with each retelling, and while he appears to still be soliciting signatures for a document he simultaneously calls settled law — the people of Accompong are not merely entitled to ask hard questions. They are obligated to.
The 1738 treaty was born from people who refused to accept governance imposed on them without their genuine consent. The question now is whether the 2022 constitution meets that same standard — or whether it has become exactly the kind of instrument the Maroon ancestors fought against.
This article draws on a transcript of the May 5, 2026 town hall meeting in Accompong, as well as reporting from the Jamaica Observer and the Jamaica Gleaner.
