Bush confirms new seats
(CNS): The premier has confirmed that government will be adding two seats to George Town and one to Bodden Town in order to meet the constitutional requirement to enlarge the country’s parliament at the next election. McKeeva Bush said he would be bringing the draft Order by the Governor which gives effect to the changes for debate in the LA in January and that he had decided not to act on the boundary commission’s recommendation of creating a new district constituency as that would mean some former George Town voters would be voting in a different district and he did not believe there was support for that.
The premier notified his legislative colleagues on Wednesday morning of his decision. Of the various possibilities that would deal with the population changes, the commission had recommended creating a seventh electoral district between Bodden Town and George Town to accommodate the three seats but Bush said that would mean altering the physical district boundaries which the government was not prepared to do.
In the short statement to the parliament Bush made no mention of the wide public support for one member, one vote. On the contrary the country will now face a situation where in some districts there will be six votes creating an even greater disparity between electors in the country’s capital compared to those living in the eastern districts with only one. George Towners will now have six times the influence on the government than people living in East End or North Side.
For the first time the imbalance will also affect the voters of West Bay who will no longer have an equal influence on the parliament with the voters in the capital as the districts member’s will remain at four which will now be the same as Bodden Town, while the sister Islands will retain their two members.
The independent member for North Side, Ezzard Miller who alongside Arden McLean is a single member representative has been making every effort to persuade government to adopt the 18 single constituencies which have already been established and confirmed by the commission and adopt the democratic principle for one member, one vote for the 2013 poll but so far his efforts have been thwarted by both the government and the speaker of the House.
The opposition leader Alden McLaughlin who also supports the concept of one man, one vote said that the only way to ensure the country eventually switches to single member constituencies is to vote out the current administration.
Category: Politics
CNS: "The opposition leader Alden McLaughlin who also supports the concept of one man, one vote said that the only way to ensure the country eventually switches to single member constituencies is to vote out the current administration." You know I hate to say this, but for Alden being one of them who participated in the drafting of our Constitution, you would have thought that he would have been a strong proponent of ensuring strong "checks and balances" therein. Alden is someone who does not forsee things. It is like the recession that came our way in 2008, I believe he and Kurt didn't forsee that coming to them, thinking that they would have made enough revenue the following year to pay off the country's expenditures. Whilst UDP now ignores the people on massive projects that could forever effect their lives, PPM are silent on the "major issues" it seems like amending the Constitution and implementing more Direct Democratic provisions therein. They should be pushing to draft an order to amend the Constitution. The people should have more powers, such as a better referendum process, initiation, and recalling politicians. Alden and Ezzardshould spearheard this… why beat around the bush???
THe number of MLAs should be reduced, not increased. Their benefits should come inline with those of the Civil Service, as their pensions are rediculously generous and they cause the country far more harm than good. Anyone, civil servant or private sector employee that loses $450,000 on a deal would be sacked, yet they do it with impunity and colect a fat salary and pension on top of it.
Next thing is, we are not really electing District representatives to look after the interest of a District. We are electing a group of special privileged incompetents who jockey among themselves for power and control. Ministers are supposed to represent the whole country, but are not elected by the whole country. The stinking system is flawed from the concept and fundamentals right up.
I want to see people with the backbone and integrity to change it for the better next election. People like Wayne Panton, Andrew Reid, Carlyle McLaughlin, Jennifer Dilbert, Julene Banks, Wade DaCosta, to name a few. I are tired of the politics as usual and changing players for players. We have to change the rules of the game if we are really to see change.
Please everyone. Elect good, honest people next election.
Let's apply some numbers to this.
15,187 registered voters as of October 1st, 2011
That is an average of 844 registered voters per district on a "one man, one vote" basis.
With two parties and various independents, reasonable to assume that 40% of the vote in a district wins the seat, so that means 338 votes to win a seat.
Let's say the the pay and benefits of MLAs are (conservatively) CI$150k per year, that is CI$600k for a four year term.
That works out to a cost per voter in MLA employment costs alone of cCI$1775 per voter per four year term.
The price of democracy is high !
Compare to the UK, with some rough figures being taking 15,000 votes to win a seat as an MP, employment cost of STG50k. That works out over four years to how much per voter for representation ?
As the kids would say.. OMG ! It works out to just over CI$17 per voter per four year term
Can it really be 100 TIMES MORE EXPENSIVE for our representatives in Cayman than the mother country ?
{shakes head}
Silly me, and my literal view. I thought that representatives were supposed to …… represent the people.
Silly rabbit.
What about Cayman Brac? Dont matter what you plan for us we are going to make a change. We have one of the best picked already and also a back up in case of some mishap. BOO BOO crying time again.
This is most bizarre for many reasons.
I agree with those who argue this is a hugely expensive exercise, driven by misguided math.
Rather than being forced to increase the numbers of MLA’s to allow an increase in Cabinet members to better share the workload, it would be far better to focus on reducing the things our Government takes on itself to do (and often unecessarily, badly and wastefully) and thus the workload of Cabinet members.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It is most disappointing that there is no move to single member constituencies. And that the UK is not pushing harder for this fundamental principle. All the more reason for the electorate here to demand it loudly.
The addition of two seats in George Town will make forecasting the outcome of the next election in that District very hard. And it is pretty certain that the GT results will control the outcome of the whole election. So we can expect both the UDP and the PPM to throw very heavy resources into this District.
I (and others no doubt) will relish casting 6 votes, as it will be a record by any election standard anywhere – even Chicago. And it would be amazing if it ever happens again in the future.
Tim Ridley
I really hope that I will "relish" casting six votes next time, as I struggled to cast three out of four last time.
Are you running?
It is amazing that Mac simply will not listen to the people! All we are asking for is one man one vote with single member constituencies.
I hope we do not have to wait until May 2013 for Ezzard to fix this issue too.
More pigs at the trough!
Only peson benefitting from additional seats is those getting paid for their vote in the case of Bodden Town it means more Yards to fill with aggregate from the various suppliers in the district connected to government You know how it go no cash any more just PURE DIRT politics. Some people in for a big surprise this time around though?
The UDP is the worst Government I can think of in Cayman's short history.
No accountability, blatant deal-mongering, conflicts of interest, lavish expediture, unbalanced budget, political interference in tendering, boards and committees, disrespect of good governance, biased Speaker, mud0s;inging, sneaking around, refusing to answer, cant balance budget, no idea where government accounts are, failed budget, sexist and abusive to constituents, profiteering on ridiculous development deals, side deals with proposed developers, broken contracts, no coherent development plan, now railroading 1 man:1 vote despite majority support of constituents at enhanced cost to the public purse.
well what a waste!!!!!!!!! I guest Mackeeva know darn well this will be his last time as a Minister or Premier so he is making his bed. This man has caused more negative news about this country in 2 years than anyone i can remember. But tis is what undecated people do so we get what we pay for Lol.
Mackeeva have plans to retire elsewhere do you really think that once he is finish doing the damage, he is going to stick around. Central America here I come. The investigation will not end soon, and by the time its done "he long gone" just like the rest of them that ran away and ran fast dust will remain.
I say Go far away and Stay Long Mackeeva you poo excuse for a human being.
Despite Puppet Mac's ploys, all of the Made-in-China appliances will not get him back in power!!!
He is guaranteed a seat, because the Chineese will have status and all the formalities will be completed and they will be living in West Bay,and they will be elligible to vote. How dear you say the Elephant will not be parading in the LA!!
The ONLY way to NOT have a third world Government is to NOT empower third world people.
Why do we need more of these bozo's? Cut the budget by getting rid of some..oh yeah, forgot, we voted for the new constitution…"a license to sell money"
This is one time when less is more. We need less members. We are paying outrageous salaries for nothing and wonder why the country is broke.
Are these so called additional seats going to get a monthly salary???? How on earth can this country afford to pay another salary, let alone three more???? This is insane!!!!
We should be cutting the government and the LA. Our college student government handled bigger budgets, executed bigger decisions, with less than 20 volunteer full time students running the show. The CIG is a disgrace.
Hey Folks crying about additional costs with the proposed three seats, please stop and think. THINK, what does one man one VOTE mean, does it not mean there will be additional electoral areas. So explain the cost benefit to me?
More money being paid for nothing.
This has nothing to do with democracy.
It is merely increasing the cost of government with no off-setting benefits.
One person / one vote is the better way forward.
I was hoping Spotts/Savannah could be separated from BT. I do believe Prospect counts as GT also.
When we should be downsizing and cutting back our government is enlargeing and getting bigger. What we need to do is reduce the MLS' by three members down to twelve and have no district boundaries. Every voter should be given 12 votes to elect the MLAs' from a national slate of candidates. We would save millions of $$ and end up with the most educated, competent and intelligent candidates being elected to office. All matters decided in the Legislative Assembly effect us all from a national standpoint no matter which district you reside in so what is the point of having 'district representatives'.
No Old Sea Captain how this works is that we increase the elected members, increased the payroll then complain and cut the CS jobs. By the way this comes with the backing of Mother Country, who are having problems in the same area. Gee I wonder who their advisors are?
Cayman need this like a hole in the head. Increasing the expense of already expensive government will increase the cost of living. How is this supposed to help the people?