Letterto the Editor
Arguments forand against 17 single-member constituencies
Dear Sir,
Please allow me the opportunity to refutesome of the arguments used by the UDP as to why the Cayman Islandsshould not have 17 single-member constituencies at this time.
The Honourable Linford Pierson of the UDPhas said that it would be "premature" for the CaymanIslands to have 17 single-member constituencies at this time andthe Honourable McKeeva Bush has made a similar statement and alsosaid that it would be "highly ambitious" for the CaymanIslands to move to such a system at this time and that "Caymanmay be too young for it".
The UDP would like the system of single-memberconstituencies to be phased in and as an example of how it couldbe phased in Mr. Pierson has said that "rather than havesix single-member constituencies in George Town, we could perhapsstay with 2 or 3 constituencies until the voting population becomemore acquainted with the system". Mr. Bush has also usedBermuda as an example of a jurisdiction in which the concept ofsingle-member constituencies has been gradually phased in. AsMr. Bush has pointed out, until recently Bermuda had 2-memberconstituencies, which it had since 1968, but has now moved tosingle-member constituencies.
The clear implication of the rhetoric usedby the UDP is that the Cayman Islands are not politically matureenough for single-member constituencies. The UDP's rhetoric inthis regard begs the question, why are the Cayman Islands matureenough for party politics and a full ministerial system of government,but not single-member constituencies? The fact of the matter isthat the Cayman Islands already have single-member constituencies,namely North Side and East End, and therefore the voters of theCayman Islands are already familiar with this system.
The fact that some constituencies in theCayman Islands have a single member and others have 2, 3 or 4members is inherently unfair to some of the voters in the CaymanIslands. Why should a voter who lives in one part of the Islandshave more votes than a voter who lives in another part of theIslands? Clearly, such a system is unfair to a voter who has lessvotes than another voter. And therein lies the distinction betweenthe Cayman Islands and Bermuda, and any other jurisdiction thathas multi-member constituencies.
In Bermuda, when it had 2-member constituencies,all of the constituencies were 2-member constituencies and soall (not some) of the voters had 2 votes. In the British VirginIslands, where there are 9 single-member constituencies and oneIslands-wide constituency having 4 members, all of the votershave 5 votes (1 for the constituency in which they are registeredand 4 for the Islands-wide constituency). In Montserrat, wherethere is only 1 Island-wide constituency having 11 members, allof the voters have 11 votes.
Under our current system, the fact thatWest Bay and George Town each have 4 representatives allows acandidate who is very popular in one of those districts (but notnecessarily popular Island wide) and has a large block of votersto have excessive political clout. The reason for this is thatsuch a candidate can ask the voters who would vote for him toalso vote for his running mates thereby "pulling-along"his running mates.
A candidate who is elected along with his3 running mates is a formidable political force to be reckonedwith. If on the other hand a district such as West Bay were tobe divided into single-member constituencies then the politicalclout of such a politician would be greatly diminished. His coresupporters would be split between the constituencies and, althoughhe would likely have enough support in his own constituency tobe elected, it is doubtful that there would be enough of his supportersin the other single-member constituencies to have all of his runningmates elected. The fewer the number of his running mates who areelected, the less his political clout.
Mr. Bush has also stated that if the CaymanIslands were to have 17 single-member constituencies "wecould easily end up with poor versus rich, white against black".Furthermore, he has stated that if Cayman Brac were to be splitinto two constituencies this would mean that "one side haveand the other side suffers, the east would get nothing".This talk is nothing more than an irresponsible scare tactic onthe part of the UDP. In all jurisdictions in which there are multipleconstituencies, including in the Cayman Islands with its existingconstituencies, it is inevitable that the constituencies willhave different racial and class compositions. However, this inand of itself does not lead to racial or class discord.
In a system of single-member constituencieseach constituency would have one representative in the LegislativeAssembly and therefore should have same attention paid to it bythe Legislative Assembly/Government as any other constituency.The biggest concern when creating new constituencies is that thebody responsible for drawing the boundaries of the new constituenciesdeliberately draws them in such a way as to give one group orparty a majority of the voters in each constituency (this is called"gerrymandering").
At the end of the day the actual boundariesof the new constituencies would be determined by the ElectoralBoundary Commission formed under the new constitution and, indetermining the constituency boundaries, the commission wouldbe forbidden from considering the number of voters of a particularrace in each constituency and would be required to ensure, whereverpossible, that the constituencies contain equal numbers of voters.
I hope that the foregoing will serve todispel some of the fears about single-member constituencies thatthe UDP has attempted to create in the minds of the voters.
Bryan Hunter