Search Results for 'alden one man one vote hijack'
Obligation missing in vote law
(CNS): The opposition leader has accused the government of hijacking the referendum on one man, one vote (OMOV) as well as not actually making a commitment to the result. After receiving the draft bill for the referendum law, which will be presented to the Legislative Assembly when in returns next month, Alden McLaughlin said it provides no obligation on government to actually implement OMOV even if that is what the people vote for. The PPM leader also said it was highly unusual for government to launch an immediate attack on its own referendum and he intended to speak with the governor about the use of public funds to campaign against the principle of OMOV.
McLaughlin accused government of stacking the odds against its own question and said there were a number of issues with the bill, from the question itself to the failure of the government to make polling day a public holiday.
“There is a major problem that the government is campaigning against its own referendum question and using public funds to do so,” he said.
The question proposed on the draft bill, he noted, did not commit the government to implementing the actual system, even if the vote was an overwhelming ‘yes’. In addition, the bar was set as high as a people-initiated referendum, despite now being a government initiated vote.
“What the government has done in this case is hijack the people-initiated petition process, hijack the entire initiative and have taken it over," he said, adding that it was done so deliberately to ensure the government had control of the process, taking the “steam out of the petition”.
Government, he said, had announced the date and proposed the question but then immediately launched a “full frontal assault on their own question” under the guise of what they called an "education campaign".
He said the government campaign was designed to defeat the referendum question using public money. “That is highly inappropriate and we shall be taking steps to address this issue with the governor, the deputy governor and the Elections Office,” he said. “We cannot have the UDP using the office of government and the Treasury of government to campaign against a referendum question it has put forward, having taking the initiative away from the people.”
McLaughlin pointed out that a people’s initiated referendum (and the petition has now exceeded the necessary number to trigger that constitutional right) was an indication of a desire on the part of the people for the ballot and in such circumstances the government would take a neutral position or embark on an education campaign that would look at both sides, not one campaigning against the question that the people want asked and answered.
OMOV missing from agenda
(CNS): Two government members and the independent member for North Side have all raised the issue that the elections law is missing from government’s legislative agenda. While the next election is still three years away, in his contribution to the budget debate Thursday Ezzard Miller raised concerns that, with no plans to address it this year, Cayman could still go to the polls in 2017 under the old system. On Friday PPM member Al Suckoo said he would be doing everything he could to lobby for the change and then on Monday Roy McTaggart, the C4C member for George Town, also suggested implementing a newvoting system sooner rather than later.
With no plans to bring the legislative changes this year, Miller was the first to raise concerns that this was a clear signal that the PPM-led government would not usher in the changes, despite the widespread support across the country, in time for the 2017 national vote. He said that if government is waiting until the 2015/16 year to address it by the time any legislation is ready the government will run out of time to implement the changes.
Despite having campaigned on a platform to introduce 'one man, one vote', the PPM leader and premier made a dramatic U-turn on the issue during a the debate on a private members motion brought by the member for East End, Arden McLean, earlier this year. Alden McLaughlin said that he did not have the full support of his entire government and he would not push through voting reform without consensus.
However, back-bench government member and Bodden Town representative Al Suckoo vowed Friday during his contribution to the budget debate to lobby hard for the introduction of OMOV in single member constituencies, as he said he still believed it was the best option. Suckoo told his colleagues that a lot had been said on the subject and while he recognized there were some different views in government and he would wait for the internal debate to finish, he promised to work hard for the reform during this administration.
Roy McTaggart also raised the issue in his contribution on Monday. He was elected in George Town, where voters had six votes in the 2013 election as a result of the growth in the electors register, which had fuelled the concerns about voter inequity. The C4C member of the government said that he too had noted that the elections law was absent from the agenda. McTaggart said if the government was to achieve a change then the law must be handled in the coming year. The second elected member for George Town said he wanted to see the debate start on how the system could be changed and warned that supporters and the voting public are expecting to see some movement on this subject.
McLaughlin has never said how many of his government members do not support the change in the voting system or which of those members are not backing the move to what most people agree is a more equitable voting system. In the face of the rejection of his private members motion in February, Arden McLean pointed the finger at McLaughlin as being the real stumbling block to OMOV and one of the reasons he resigned from the PPM.
In July 2012 the referendum returned a majority in favour of 'one man, one vote' in single member constituencies, which was still rejected by the UDP government at the time as it was not a majority of the entire electorate but a simple majority of those who voted.
During that campaign, Alden McLaughlin had raised his concerns that the referendum would by hijacked by the UDP government and he had told voters that the only way to ensure that 'one person, one vote' would be introduced in Cayman was to elect a PPM government —
a campaign promise which is looking increasingly likely to be broken.
In the legislative programme for the 2014/15 financial year, which is published in the Annual Plan and Estimated document, there are more than fifty legislative amendments and new laws that the Progressives plan to bring to the LA, but no mention of the elections law.
OMOV would delay election
(CNS): The introduction of one man, one vote and single member constituencies for the May General Election would delay the poll many months because of the time line and legal barriers. However, the opposition leader has said this may be why the Coalition for Cayman has called for its implementation, forcing a lengthy delay to get more campaign time. Alden McLaughlin reiterated his commitment to the principle of OMOV Thursday and promised to implement the system should his party win office, but he said he did not want to see the next election delayed, and he questioned the genuine support for OMOV by the C4C chair, who just a few months before the referendum publicly stated his opposition to it.
“Unless they are trying to delay the election, and I am wondering seriously if they may want that to happen, it is constitutionally, legally and practically impossible to move to single member constituencies once the election writ has been issued,” McLaughlin added, as he accused the political group, which is not calling itself a party, of misleading the people about what is possible and what is not.
Emphasising his own support, however, he pointed to a letter which had been published in The Caymanian Compass in April 2012, just a few months before Cayman went to the polls for last summer’s referendum on the issue, in which James Bergstrom,who is now the C4C chair, said he did not think dissecting Grand Cayman into 17 segments was the answer and voiced his opposition to the democratic principle.
McLaughlin raised the obvious question of why the C4C would turn its attention to something that cannot be accomplished at the eleventh hour when there were multiple other issues to campaign on.
“There is no way with the number of lawyers they have that they don’t understand the legal and constitutional hurdles to this, so the question is are they deliberately misrepresenting and creating false expectations for electioneering purposes, which would be downright dishonest,” he said.
With the election train now going full steam ahead, the focus, as far as the timeline is concerned, is on 27 March, which is Nomination Day when candidates declare which district they will run for election. However, if government were to try and move to single member constituencies (SMCs), Nomination Day would have to be postponed and with it the election date, which would then require further legislative changes.
With the addition of well over 3,000 names to the election register since the Election Boundary Commission carried out its report in order for the election to be fair, the commission would have to ensure that the new voters did not skew the voter head count in each constituency.
The only way that the election could be held on the basis of one man vote is for each elector at the election to be given one vote, no matter which district they vote in, and then the appropriate number of the top candidates for each district would be elected. This would mean that in George Town the top six candidates would win. This would require only a minor change to the electionslaw and has been advocated only by Ezzard Miller.
The opposition leader said he does not support that move and a representative of the coalition also told CNS that the group was not in support of that option either, nor did C4C wish to delay the election, the spokesperson said. It is not clear why the group has at the eleventh hour decided to begin a campaign which cannot lawfully be achieved.
“We would have to abort this process and start all over again,” McLaughlin stated, as he made it clear he believed the call from C4C was a political move.
Having had reservations about the timing of the referendum and the hijacking of what should have been a people’s vote by the former premier, the opposition leader has faced accusations that he does not support one man one vote. However, he has persistently denied those accusations and emphasised his continued support for OMOV.
He pointed out that the PPM raised much of the financing for the OMOV campaign and, many of the candidates running on the PPM ticket were at the forefront of the promotion and campaigning. McLaughlin stated it was Progressive members who organised the main public meeting for the campaign ahead of the referendum and helped organise the walkabouts and community gatherings.
“It is ridiculous to suggest that we do not support one man, one vote in single member constituencies,” he said, questioning where the only two officially declared candidates were when the OMOV campaign for the referendum was in full swing. He said neither Winston Connolly nor Roy McTaggart were anywhere near the campaigning.
That point, coupled with the stated opposition to the democratic system by Bergstrom, who heads up the ambiguous group, as well as the significant practical, legal and constitutional problems makes the call from C4C looked increasingly like an election ploy.
Last minute push for OMOV
(CNS): With the time for campaigning almost over, supporters of the OMOV campaign are urging people to go out and vote ‘Yes’ on Wednesday. Given the high bar the government has set in order for the 18 July referendum to carry, anyone who stays home will be indirectly voting ‘no’ even if they support one man, one vote and the principle of equality in democracy. As they make the last minute push to persuade people that apathy will be this ballot’s biggest enemy, the OMOV campaign has made arrangements in each of the electoral districts for transport to take people to the polls if they have no means of going under their own steam.
The opposition leader and head of the PPM said that, with the bar set so high by government after it hijacked the campaign, which had been led by a groundswell of grassroots support for equity in the community, people cannot be apathetic about their vote. The referendum will only carry if 50% plus one of the entire electorate vote ‘yes’, regardless of the percentage of turnout.
The greatest challenge on Wednesday will be the turn out,” said McLaughlin. “Voters ought not to be intimidated or frightened by the premier and his cohorts as they have a vested interest in preserving the current system as it has served them well and they are relying on it to secure themselves in office at the next general election. The UDP is not interested in the best system for Cayman but the one that they believe is more likely to see them re-elected,” Alden McLaughlin told the electorate on the eve of the historic referendum.
Ezzard Miller, the independent MLA who spearheaded the original petition for a referendum on the subject to take place in November, urged everyone to go to the polls on Wednesday and make sure that they carry someone with them and vote “yes”.
“It is very, very important that people come out and vote in order for OMOV to win the day,” he said, adding that anyone who had any difficulties getting to the polls could call one of the numbers posted below to get a ride to their local polling station. “If you stay home your vote will be counted as a ‘no’," he warned. “Be part of history and be one of those 7,583 people needed to bring about democratic change.”
Miller said that throughout the campaign the supporters of one man, one vote and single member constituencies have been consistent with their message and educating voters on the reasons why they believe OMOV is more democratic and equitable.
“By comparison, the government has changed its position over and over again in relation to this critical issue as members of the front and backbench offer different ideas and opinions from day to day,” he said. “The UDP is not interested in true democracy but manipulating voters to vote straight.”
With considerably less resources at its disposal and relying entirely on private cash to fund the campaign, the OMOV team has worked on campaigning door to door and holding small meetings to explain their position. Bo Miller, one of the committee members, said the campaigners would continue Tuesday as member try to persuade a few more voters who are still unaware, unsure or undecided to vote ‘yes’ before midnight, when the election law prohibits further campaigning.
“We are still optimistic,” Bo Miller added. “And we intend to make the last push on Tuesday and take the campaign on to the streets.”
Anyone needing a ride to the polls on Wednesday 18 July can call the following numbers:
NS — Ezzard Miller 327-5757
EE — Arden McLean 916-0630
BT — Al Suckoo 916-1689
GT – Barbara Conolly 916-5419
WB – Woody DaCosta 916-2470
PPM Office — 945-8292, 945-1776, 926-4717 or 916-5419
Check CNS throughout Referendum Day on Wednesday for crucial updates on the voter turnout across the six electoral districts, which will be critical to the overall result. Once the count starts, stay close to your computer to check for the live results.
PPM wants OMOV for Brac
(CNS): The opposition leader has said that his party fully supports the principle of one man, one vote for the people of the Sister Islands as well as Grand Cayman. However, the PPM’s position is that because of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman’s unique position it will remain one constituency with two members elected on a first and second past the post basis. In response to a Viewpoint on CNS, Alden McLaughlin said the opposition position on the situation in the Sister Islands was misrepresented as he said the party had always supported the principle of the electorate voting only once but the top two candidates then being returned.
McLaughlin said the PPM did not support voters on the Brac and LC having two votes.
“There are two issues here, one person one vote and single member constituencies and the most important element is addressing the inequity of some districts having multiple votes and others having one. The PPM supports the principle that electors in the Sister Islands will still have only one vote in a constituency that will have two members because of its unique situation,” he said.
He said that the petition had been circulated on the Brac and many people had signed on that basis. While not everyone wanted to lose one of their votes, he said, by and large the principle of one man, one vote was accepted on Cayman Brac and Little Cayman so long as the islands remained one constituency.
“The Brac is a special case,” McLaughlin told CNS on Friday. “It has always been treated differently from Grand Cayman because of its remoteness from the seat of government and the representatives also play a local government role.”
He explained that the Sister Islands are administered differently and independently, making the constituency situation different from those on the larger island. Despite the voting population being relatively small, it has two members constitutionally enshrined because of its geographical position.
McLaughlin said his party had as far back as 2002 come to the view that this arrangement could accommodate the wishes of the majority there as well as the uniqueness of the smaller islands.
He said there had always been concerns because of the Brac and Little Cayman’s isolation from the main seat of power that if there were two constituencies, one with an opposition member and one with a government member, there would be a danger of real inequalities in the local government or district administration.
McLaughlin said there was no conflict with this situation for the Sister Islands with the goal to introduce one man, one vote across the Cayman Islands. He said the real fight now had to be on ensuring the premier offered all voters on 18 July a clear and precise question on the ballot paper.
The PPM leader said that the premier “had hijacked the referendum process” on the issue and he had real concerns about multiple questions that could seriously undermine a clear majority result.
“There are many ways that this could play out and I believe the premier will attempt to put forward numerous questions to confuse and complicate the issue,” he said. “I am certain this will not be straightforward and there is lots of scope for the premier to play all sorts of games.”
McLaughlin echoed the sentiments of Ezzard Miller that the question has to be clear and precise and the ballot should require a simple majority to pass.