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Posted: Thursday 15 January, 2015 at 2:17 PM

Beyond the boundaries

By: G.A.Dwyer Astaphan, Commentary

    The political polls done by or on behalf of Denzil Douglas over the past year have brought him no comfort.

     

    Persons on the inside of those polls have been generous to me, and, I tell you, when he finds out who among his ‘good and trusty’ friends have been talking, Douglas is going to go totally insane! 
     
    A number of these ‘good and trusty’ friends of his recognize the trending towards Unity and they know that his political boat has more holes than hull.
     
    One of them told me that Douglas is so desperate that he’s willing to empty the Treasury, empty Social Security, and empty the SIDF in his craving to hold on to power. 
     
    But that’s easy for all of us to see, even without being told so.
     
    Yet, the giving away of everything in sight in the hope of getting votes in return hasn’t been working for him. People know what he’s done to them and their children, and they feel that what they’re getting now they deserve, so they don’t owe him, or any of his candidates, a darned thing! And certainly not their votes!
     
    The people have wised up to Denzil Douglas and his gang. They’ve been on the receiving end of his punishment for too long, and they feel that it’s time for them to put a stop to it. And he knows it. 
     
    So despite the illegal registrations, despite the machinations, despite the hype and showbiz, and the rest of it, Denzil Douglas is a frightened man. You can see it in his face.
     
    And his fear isn’t easing up, because right now, as we speak, a telephone poll is being done for him, and he’s getting his backside kicked in it. Too many people, when asked who they‘ll be voting for in the upcoming elections, are answering “Unity”. And some of his telephone canvassers are finding the experience to be very distressing.
     
    This is why, even without being privy to the information on Douglas’ polls, anyone with common sense (that’s the vast majority of us) can see that it is his fear of the outcome of an election that explains his failure to face the Motion of No Confidence for the past 766 days.
     
    And this is also why, in recent times he has begun claiming that the constituency boundaries are illegal. Maybe he has had an epiphany on things legal and illegal. I have my doubts.
     
    However, I have no doubt that if the boundaries are illegal, then he is also illegal, because he was elected to office four times on those same boundaries, and for the last nearly 20 years he has allowed the very same boundaries to stand.
     
    And if he is illegal, then he has no authority to change the boundaries.
     
    But even if he’s wrong, and the boundaries are in fact legal, then he still remains illegal because of his failure to face the Motion of No Confidence and its inevitable consequences like a man. And if he’s illegal because of that, then, likewise, he does not have the legal authority to change the boundaries.
     
    Indeed, one might argue that the Constituency Boundaries Commission itself is illegal. And if this is even remotely possible, then no meeting, action, decision or recommendation of the Commission can be legal.
     
    Meanwhile, billboards are up and more are going up. Money is being thrown around. Voters are experiencing unprecedented ‘generosity. And so on.
     
    But that last piece of the puzzle, which Douglas desperately believes that he needs in order to avoid total annihilation in this election, is to get the boundaries changed. 
     
    But in my opinion there is more than a little nonsense in this boundaries story.
     
    Firstly, we have a constituency system which is built upon, and upon nothing else but the principle of people registering where they actually reside (except for the overseas folks and those who have moved house but have not had enough time to be transferred by the system to their new address). 
     
    Secondly, Section 29(2) of the Constitution allows citizens and certain Commonwealth residents, within the framework of processes set out in the law, to be registered and to vote, based on residence and domicile.
     
    Thirdly, the Second Schedule to the Constitution speaks to creating, as best as possible, an equality  among constituencies, based on the numbers of inhabitants.
     
    Fourthly, determining the numbers of inhabitants is done through a census, and when census workers go house to house they typically do not count Kittitians and Nevisians living overseas as inhabitants. How can Mr. Smith, born in Newtown and living in Miami for the last 10 years, be regarded as an inhabitant of Newtown?
     
    While he might be properly included in the Voters’ List for the area, he is not an  inhabitant.
     
    And fifthly, when a census is done, the lady living in Parsons Village is recorded as an inhabitant of Parsons Village, which is in Constituency Number 6. But she is registered to vote (illegally, I might add) in Crab Hill, Sandy Point, which is in Constituency 5.
     
    Doesn’t this make a nonsense of the Constituency System?
     
    How does equalizing numbers on the basis of inhabitants solve the problem? Indeed, can the process genuinely reach a fair and just distribution of numbers among the constituencies?
     
    Right there we may have a divergence and a difficulty caused by the wording of these two areas of the Constitution, with the potential to do more damage than good in an effort to change boundaries. A difficulty which is not resolved by the effort to change the boundaries, and which indeed is exacerbated by the fact that so many people are illegally registered in constituencies where they do not reside.
     
    Further, the Second Schedule speaks to inhabitants, not to adult inhabitants, so the census data can again cloud up the picture in the search for a more equitable realignment of constituencies for the purpose of conducting an election. Because children are counted as inhabitants too, as they should be.
     
    With these concerns, it appears to me imprudent, even disastrous, for anyone, worse so an already illegitimate occupant of the Office of Prime Minister, to try to change the boundaries at this time.
     
    And disastrous well beyond the boundaries.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
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