This is a long piece and not easy to read on FB, but for the record Ill like you know the MSJs position on the Constitution Amendment Bill. MEDIA RELEASE THE MSJ UNEQUIVOCALLY STATES THE CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT BILL 2014 MUST NOT BE PASSED The following is the position of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) on the Constitution Amendment Bill 2014 , which position was adopted at the Party’s Special Convened Executive Committee Meeting to discuss the Bill, and which meeting was held on Wednesday August 6th, 2014. The Constitution Amendment Bill 2014 seeks to implement three major changes to the country’s Constitution. These are: (a) The introduction of a “term limit” for any individual serving as Prime Minister; (b) The introduction of a process by which the electorate can recall their Member of Parliament; and (c) The introduction of a system of second round balloting to elect a Member of Parliament in the event that no candidate offering themselves for election obtains 50% of the votes cast. We will address comments on each of these three proposed changes. It is to be noted that the first two proposed reforms have been proposed in previous discussions on constitutional reform and were included in the 2010 Elections Manifesto of the Peoples Partnership. Equally important to be noted is that the third proposed change – i.e. has NEVER been proposed or discussed in any previous process of constitutional reform. To introduce such a change without any prior discussion or debate is WRONG. The Constitution must not be trifled with: it is the Supreme law of the country and any amendments with respect to how our democracy is organised or how our institutions are constructed MUST be fully ventilated by the population BEFORE being considered by the Parliament. On this basis alone, the Bill ought to be rejected. (a) The introduction of a “term limit” for any individual serving as Prime Minister: The following is taken from the Preamble to the Bill “With respect to term limits for the office of Prime Minister, the Bill would, by clause 8, amend the Constitution to limit service as Prime Minister to no more than ten years and six months, whether such service is continuous or has been interrupted. A Prime Minister would therefore be required to vacate his office upon attaining that length of service. No account would, however, be taken of any time spent serving as acting Prime Minister for the purposes of calculating length of service. Further, no one would be appointed as Prime Minister who has served ten years or more in that office, whether or not such service is continuous or has been interrupted”. The MSJ agrees in principle with the concept of term limits. However as articulated here it leaves room for mischief. While it proposes to limit Prime Ministers to two terms, it actually uses years as the measure (ten years and six months). 1. We have an example between the General Elections of December 2001 and May 2010 of a Prime Minister actually serving three terms but only accumulating a total of eight years and five months in office. Therefore this should be amended to two term limits rather than stating a stipulation based on number of years served. 2. To make it consistent, this term must be accompanied by fixed election dates. 3. Since 1981 the electorate has ensured that no Prime Minister has served for two full, five year terms. So in isolation this amendment will have no material impact. Unless there is clear decentralisation of power away from the Prime Minister this does not affect the Prime Ministerial function or deepen democracy in any way. (b) The introduction of a process by which the electorate can recall their Member of Parliament: The following is taken from the Preamble to the Bill “In relation to the recall of members of the House of Representatives, the Bill would, by clause 5, amend section 49(2) of the Constitution to require a member of the House of Representatives to vacate his seat where the Speaker informs the House that he has received from the Chairman of the Elections and Boundaries Commission, a petition requesting that the member be recalled and that a bye-election be held in the constituency that the member represents. The petition would need to supported by at least two-thirds of all the persons who, on the date of issuance of the petition, were registered voters in that constituency” The MSJ agrees in principle with the right to recall. This is articulated in our policy document. However as articulated here it gives room for malfeasance more that accountability. The mechanisms proposed are so fatally flawed as to make the right of recall ineffective and will simply provide opportunities for political mischief and a permanent election campaign from year four of the parliamentary term. 1. There is no clearly articulated performance criteria for a recall to be triggered. In other words, on what basis would a Member of Parliament be removed? The population has a task here to separate performance as a legislator, or as representative addressing constituency needs from performance as a Cabinet Minister, if his/her party is in government. There are no stated responsibilities and this must come first. 2. The threshold to trigger a Recall Ballot is too low and the subsequent threshold for the recall to be successful is too high. This makes the mechanism fatally flawed. a. The trigger of the Recall Ballot: two persons (a husband and wife with a grouse?) will apply for the petition from the EBC and then they must get 10% of the registered voters to sign for the Recall ballot to be declared. The average number of voters in a constituency is 25,000, which means that 2,500 signatures can trigger a Recall Ballot. This is way too low as such a petition can be filled purely for political expediency. In Tobago, the number will be much lower than 2,500. b. The threshold for success: This is given as two thirds of the electorate in the constituency. In 2010 the total voter turnout was 69% nationally. In 2007 the national average was 66%. In effect this recall would require all the opposition and the incumbent’s supporters to vote in favour of the recall. It is highly unlikely that any MP would be recalled using this threshold. 3. The formula as proposed (low threshold to trigger and high threshold to effect recall) is a recipe for parties to have their members trigger these recalls simply to create instability and to have a permanent election campaign starting from the fourth year of the parliamentary term straight to General Elections. 4. There is no explanation for a 21 day voting period. It is wrong to have a twelve hour period on election day to elect a person and then 21 days available to vote to recall that person. 5. Campaigning will be a major part of the recall process as parties try to defend their position to have a recall or ward off a recall. Either way with no party finance legislation we will leave room for corruption and solicitation of votes by the highest bidders. 6. The open admission in the Bill that the Elections and Boundaries Commission will be unable to verify that persons who actually are registered and live in the constituency vote in the recall, is suggesting that the process could be open to voter padding and corruption. 7. There is no provision for the recall of Government Senators even if they are misbehaving in office. (c) The introduction of a system of second round balloting to elect a Member of Parliament in the event that no candidate offering themselves for election obtains 50% of the votes cast. The following is taken from the Preamble to the Bill “The Bill would amend section 73 of the Constitution by preventing a candidate in a general election from being elected as the member of the House of Representatives for a constituency, unless he obtains more than fifty percent of the votes cast in the constituency. Where none of the candidates in a constituency in a general election obtains more than fifty percent of the votes cast in the constituency, a supplementary poll between those candidates who earned the highest and second highest number of votes would be held within fifteen days of the declaration of the results of the general election and the list of electors for the purposes of the supplementary poll would be the same list which was used for the purposes of the general election.” This is the most controversial proposal of the three. The MSJ unequivocally opposes it. There is no basis for it as there has never been any such proposal or recommendation in any previous discourse locally on Constitutional reform: not in the Wooding Constitution Commission; not in the Hyatali Constitution Commission; not in the process chaired by Drs La Guerre and Ryan; not in the Hamid Ghany process, not in the Constitution Reform (CRF) civil society process; not in the Principles of Fairness or Manning/Elis Clarke draft constitutions. It has indeed been parachuted into the legislative package to fulfil a hidden agenda. It was NOT in the manifesto of the UNC/Partnership. It does not even appear as a proposal in the report by the Constitution Review Committee which was headed by the leader of the COP. 1. The run off ballot has been conventionally reserved for the election of Executive President throughout the world. In fact most of these countries have mixed systems and only a hand-full actually use the “run off system” for all levels of government. 2. In the absence of party finance reform there will be an unprecedented vigour to engage in buying votes. 3. The mathematics of this proposal contradicts its proposed intent for greater representation. The argument is the end to minority MPs. However the 51% is not a percentage of the total electorate but rather of voter turnout. In 2010 every MP achieved the 50% of votes cast; but most did not get 50% of the electorate to support them. The answer here is obvious. In a two party race you can only win if you get over 50%. In 2010 the MP for Caroni East received 61% of the votes cast. However that accounts for only 46% of the total electorate. So no runoff for a minority MP. The government is therefore selling a lie to the people to justify the passage of the Bill. 4. In the case where there is a third or fourth party, there is an assumption that the persons who cast their votes for those parties would suddenly vote for someone else in 15 days. Let us take the Couva North seat in 2007, the seat won by the UNC leader Basdeo Panday. Results were as follows: PNM – 5249, UNC – 8832 and COP – 4839. In this case Mr. Panday would not have received the required 51% of the voter turnout to avoid the run off. The COP would have to drop out in the run off vote. The question to be asked is what would the COP voters do? Abstain if they could not in conscience vote for either the PNM or UNC? Vote for the PNM? Vote for the UNC? Would the second round run off, in a two way race have reversed the original result? 5. The impact of our culture of voting cannot be ignored in such an amendment. The predominant discussion of our politics has been the entrenched race based voting blocks. However there has been an equally important block of non-aligned voters who have been determining who takes government for some time now. Neither of the traditional parties can lay claim to this group. What this piece of legislation does is to force them to make a choice between parties they have historically rejected or opt for self-imposed disenfranchisement. This could very well lead to lower voter turnouts as one outcome. 6. In effect, what the UNC is seeking to do is to make the third parties, the alternatives to the two ethnic parties, almost non-starters in an election since voters will say – what’s the sense in voting for you, it’s a wasted vote since in the run off you will not be on the ballot. Indeed, the Attorney General, in a TV interview this morning stated as much. As far as he is concerned there should only be two parties in the country – UNC and PNM. For him, every other party is a nuisance unless it joins in a coalition with one of the UNC or PNM. We totally reject this position. It is fundamentally anti-democratic as it posits – contrary to the Constitutional Right of Freedom of Association – that your right to form a party and offer it for elections and your right to vote for a party of your choice is conditional on joining a coalition. 7. This provision is in direct contradiction with the concept of proportional representation which is the official policy of the UNC, articulated as recently as last year in the amendments to the election of Aldermen for Local Government Bodies. Has the UNC changed its position? And who approved that change? 8. This provision is also diametrically opposed to the stated policy of the COP. We call on COP members to vote in accordance with their party policy and vote against the Bill. Moreover, this provision which is designed to destroy third parties is totally against the interest of the COP. If they don’t vote against the Bill then Ministers Ramadhar, Dookeran, Seepersad-Bachan, Douglas, Samuel will have constitutionally buried the COP after they have politically killed it. The MSJ will be organising two public education forums – one on Tuesday 12th in Port of Spain and the other on Wednesday August 13th in San Fernando to explain to citizens the dangers of the bill. Further to this, we are committed to taking action in defence of democracy to stop this legislation from taking effect
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 06:18:25 +0000
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