Kimberly Jonathan has been officially reinstated as the First Vice-Chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.
At today’s spring assembly on the Whitecap reserve, chiefs voted to reinstate her by a count of 43 in favour, 2 opposed, and 5 abstentions.
Several weeks ago the Federation announced that the appeals tribunal board had found problems with her electoral victory.
It apparently determined that problems with the voting machine in the October vote had tainted her win.
They subsequently ruled that a by-election would have to take place.
Just days later though, the Federation issued another release saying the Indian Government Commission, which is composed of 34 members, could not arrive at a decision to pass the motion needed for a by-election.
They temporarily reinstated her until the matter could be discussed at today’s assembly.
For an hour-and-a-half chiefs debated the process that led them to this point.
Chief Reg Bellerose said he didn’t understand why they had created the appeals tribunal in the first place, if every decision they made, could be overturned at a later date.
However Chief Michael Starr stressed Jonathan did nothing wrong and she won the election fair and square.
That comment was echoed by Eileen Linklater of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation:
“She never did anything wrong, it was a good, clean campaign. The error was with the machine. We can’t blame it on Kim, it was the machine that did wrong.”
Many in the assembly agreed the impasse had soaked up too much attention for too long and it was time to move on.
Others said they felt Jonathan had been unfairly treated during the entire ordeal.
Jonathan walked around the room hugging her supporters after the vote was passed.