PPM wants OMOV for Brac
(CNS): The oppositionleader 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.
Category: Politics
Dear Anonymous 16:11, you obviously know very little about Cayman Brac. Brackers have been as miffed as you have been about the hurricane shelter. We all know we don't need it. We all know that there are other more important things that we need. This monstrosity could have been planted somewhere in Grand Cayman. It just happened to be planted in Cayman Brac. And in terms of all the paving of driveways, people in the Brac are also perplexed about it. Please get something straight, the paving has been for commercial business and church parking lots, not for driveways of private residences. I wholeheartedly agree that paving of commercial business and church parking lots is a misapporpriation of funds. But before you go spouting off about Cayman Brac, please get your facts straight. And another thing, Brackers could provide you with a very long list of proposals that have been put forth over the years from various committees for developing the island that have been stifled by your politicans in Grand Cayman. And how much do you want to bet that government's per capita spending on the population in Grand Cayman far exceeds that spent on the population in Cayman Brac.
Unna wait til Ezzard get a hold a dis wid Austin Tuesday morning!
Alden you ga get some licks now…
U getting in Ezzard way and he want be premier…u try go sit down..
Brackers wanting extra special treatment again. Yawn.
Cayman will suffer alot, not because of the violence of bad people, but because of the sillence of Good People.
Some of you should read the constitution better.
The Brac and Little Cayman must return 2 seats. That being said, how does one propose to split the island and create even more prejudism?
One man one vote is perfect the way Alden has described it. We want to only have one vote and as such, we will have our representative. Keep in mind that you can’t just drive to the Government Admin building from the sister islands and that it has many of the complexities of Grand Cayman but simply on a smaller scale.
Should it really matter anyways? It is one man one vote. Kind of like what will happen in George Town where essentially you will have 6 members all running in GT (whether it is called by different numbers or not) the top from each of the voting areas will get in.
Consitution says 2 members from Sister Islands and each person only gets one vote. People should look at the example the Brac is trying to set in a spirit of unity.
Sounds like this is as clear as mud to everyone posting.
While I prefer PPM over UDP any day, there are somethings I just cannot agree with Alden on. At first, he was ok with leaving the OMOV thing until the election. Now he is with it, but CYB and LCM can have two representatives. Nonsense. One for CYB and one for LCM. They are but Representatives. It has no effect on District Admin as they both will utilise the same resource.
"The [PPM] 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." LOL very funny. Alden Mclaughlin spearheads a brand new Constitution for Cayman in 2009 without the principle of one man, one vote… now flip-flops after several years to say he supports it!!! I love Alden, but I just have to wonder, does the man truly love us!
Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are two different islands so they should be two different districts. I have never had anyone ask me what is the population of the Sister Islands but they did ask what is the population of Cayman Brac or what is the population of Little Cayman and then we can get rid of the Sister Islands.
Ok, count with me… Oneeee, two! The number of voters in Little Cayman.
Who will cast the tie-breaker?
Some people should visit our isalnds before commenting!
Mac is simply playing you all like a fiddle–throwing in Cayman Brac and Little Cayman in the same pile makes him a genius. We know most CB/LC'ers like what they have and dont want to change so….Mac picks up another 2000 votes against OMOV!
Clever….
People if you want UDP and McKeeva gone this is what you need to do every hour and every day from now until July 18th–talk to everyone, educate everyone, be responsible for taking at least 4 people to polls with you….that will guarantee that UDP's ridiculous, anti-democracy position on this goes away at next election along with them.
Do not sleep, do not eat and remember take 4 people with you to polls.
A good starting point is ONE MAN, ONE VOTE! So every Caymanian gets to vote ONCE. Everyone EQUAL. Simple.
Whether there are two representatives for one constituency in Cayman Brac is completely another question and is thrown out there by the Premier to confuse the issue.
The people of Cayman Islands will finally have ONE representative that they can Blame/Praise/Honour/Fire/Hire at each election. That is good.
On the downside, I do admit Alden seems to be being pulled to the altar in this affair. I can understand his concern of not having Kurt's voters vote for him too. Must be scary. I'm sure there are several in West Bay that will miss Premiers "straight vote" calls as well.
What an interesting time. Power moving to the people.
If a majority of Brackers want to keep their present system then it is time to ignore a majority of Brackers. You have to remember that a majority of Brackers vote for JuJu, accept government money because they can get it, accept free paving of their parking lots, believe that a $12 million shelter with individual climate controls for each room is a good idea, etc. etc. etc.
Nicky's article was fantastic, and I love her dearly even though we have never met, but its time to accept the fact that democracy isn't necessarily the best form of government for everyone, and Cayman Brac is proof of that.
What a sour judgmental tone toward the Sister Islands. I have heard before there was no love lost between the islands of Cayman but you have proved the point nicely.
Amen, it will be hard to get JuJu supporters to go with just one person cause they know she won't be the one. But no problem, the majority did vote in Moses so we will sign the OMOV and just have 1 person.
On another note, I am applying for my T&B license for selling appliances. I sure going to make plenty money between now and July. I was thinking of getting some marl but don't think there is many roads left to pave. lol!
Ok genious…. check the election results!
A majority did NOT vote for JuJu. She was second place this time and hopefully wont run again!
Alden, the petition calls for Single Member Constituencies/OMOV. It did not call for SMC except for the Sister Islands/OMOV. The premier has now announced that the referendum will be a simple yes/no question to SMC/OMOV, no option for an exception for the Sister Islands. This is what 3500 or so people have called for.
So now you have to answer a simple question, do you want people to sign it or not?
You are simply confusing people with this BS.
Exactly. Shut up Alden: ur backside must reach to ur neck from all the fence-riding you doing on this issue. PICK. A TEAM!!
16:08 I really have to agree with what you have said. It proves now to the people that this One VOTE BS is only for the Political power hungry people.
However, what I have noted here is that of the three Islands. The only Island which stands strong and does not take BS is Cayman Brac. Grand Cayman is nothing alongside Cayman Brac.
I am not a Bracker, but Cayman Brac say something, they mean it and nothing can move them on their voice. VERY GOOD CAYMAN BRAC, CONTINUE TO STAND TALL.
I wish you were a bracker!
You understand us quite well.
For those who don't, most people in Cayman have Brac roots and that helps us stand strong. So while some people see us as different, they just don't realise that the ones they are talking to…. are probably tied to the Brac too. 😀
According to the Compass the Government has already decided the question (singular) and to my mind it is clear and precise:
“Do you support an electoral system of single-member constituencies with each elector being entitled to cast only one vote?”
However, I don't see how the Premier can hijack the issue and claim it is a government-initiated referendum when it is clearly prompted by the petition which I understand has almost reached the required level of 3,800 signatures. On the other hand if it is a govt. initiated referendum then it should have to be passed by a majority of those voting as happened with the only previous government initiated referendum – the referendum on the Constitution.
"A Petition for a people-initiated Referendum, as provided for by the Cayman Islands Constitutional Order 2009, to call for Single Member Constituencies/One Person, One Vote to be implemented for the next General Election to be held May 2013"
Note the wording: "single member constituencies". Isn't that what you signed?
So you're not in favour of single member constituencies then. Or you are? It's hard to keep up.
Again:
If the people of EE and NS have 1 Representative for every 500 voters there, then the people of GT, BT, WB etcetera should also have 1 Representative for every 500 voters.
So there should be 10 Representatives for GT.
OR:
Make NS and EE one electoral district of 1000 with one Representative, and then we use the ratio of 1 Representative to 1000 voters to ensure equality..
Your numbers are all wrong. Both EE and NS have almost 600 voters each. The national average number of voters per MLA will be 834. That would justify one MLA for each of EE and NS. Obviously if we had one MLA for every 500 voters we would have 30 MLAs, not 18, and if we had one for every 1000 we would remain at 15 MLAs.
2009 Stats – Total Electors:
EE 599
NS 571
BT 3481
CYB & LC 980
GT 5,968
WB 3,762
Therefore combining EE and NS we could create two single member constituencies of 585 electors (yes we would have some NSs voting in EE – but they are still Caymanian right?:
And then using the 585 we would have to have 10 Representatives in GT so as to ensure that the Elector in NS and EE are not given a better ratio (Representative to Elector):
OR – as it is one Cayman Islands, we could take the number of voters and divide the constituencies equally so that each 1000 elector has one Representative, and the odd number we have Ezzard representative cause he is used to dealing with left overs.
Would you please stop repeating the same nonsense over and over. You cannot just arbitrairly select numbers. We have 18 seats to work with and the total number of electors is just over 15,000 which means that the average number of electors per MLA is just over 800. There is common place in democratic countries for there to be variations around that average. Why the focus on EE and NS and not on CB and LC.
Combine NS and EE!
Why not focus on EE and NS?
And you focus on LC and CYB.
They are all "Cayman" – or does politics have you thinking that there are all different Caymans here.
Combine NS and EE – those districts are too small.
Play the numbers game all you want there is no doubt that East End and North Side do not have enought voters for an MLA in each district. When a fair redistricting is done they will be combined.
A fair districting has been done by Boundaries Commission appointed by the present govt. and it gives EE and NS each a seat. Pontificating that "there is no doubt" does not make it so.
Your agenda is that you want to pit Arden (EE) and Ezzard (NS) against each other. This issue has been discussed for more than 12 years and never once has such an argument been forward until now.
However, what really shows that your are disingenuous is that you haven't mentioned CB/LC which does have two MLAs but has less voters than EE and NS combined.
I say just have two MLAs per each district. Forget the math and numbers and call it even. Beside more MLAs does not necessarily mean better representation. So 2 for WB, 2 GT, 2 BT, 2 NS, 2 EE, 2CB, and 2 LC, and that equals 14. Viola!
Voila? You forgot about that document called the Constitution that requires 15 and going 18 MLAs.
The more I read the more sence I see comming out. I think this is a good Idea MAKE NORTHSIDE AND EAST END ONE ELECTORIAL DISTRICT OF 1000 VOTES. This makes sense to me. I do hope those with any sence is reading it. OMG i figured this One man one vote would have backfired somewhere.