Arden McLean
East End and North Side MLAs will today launch a “citizen’s petition” demanding one person, one vote and single legislators for each constituency, hoping to spark a referendum to influence May 2013 elections.
The petition, announced Monday night by East End MLA Arden McLean, is an effort to force changes in electoral districts and voting patterns, creating a more equitable system of representation in the Legislative Assembly.
The petition will be formally launched this afternoon by the PPM’s Mr McLean and North Side independent Ezzard Miller, who hope to gain upward of 3,500 signatures from registered electors, triggering a people-initiated referendum as required by the constitution.
“The constitution requires that we get 25% of registered voters, which is somewhere around 3,500,” Mr Miller told iNews Cayman yesterday, “although we are hoping for a lot more”, up to 5,000.
One-quarter of Cayman’s 15,175 registered voters is 3,794. Once achieved, however, the constitution obligates government to stage a public referendum on the issue, which Messers McLean and Miller hope will change the face of next year’s elections.
“I support one man, one vote,” Mr McLean told an East End gathering last night in the parking lot of D’s Grocery Store in the centre of the district. In addition to Mr Miller, the audience included PPM chief Alden McLaughlin, Bodden Town ‘s PPM representative Anthony Eden and West Bay activists Alice Mae Coe and Capt Bryan Ebanks, both of whom sought support for a George Town rally tomorrow evening on the courthouse steps.
“In East End and North Side,” Mr McLean said, “we have long practiced real democracy,” sending a single district representative to the LA.
Pointing to proposals to boost the number of George Town MLAs from four to six, and Bodden Town representatives from three to four, reflecting a burgeoning population, Mr McLean denounced the damage the move would do to East End.
“Are you kidding — six people in George Town and four in Bodden Town? Is that fair? That means six chances for George Town to influence government. There are already four in West Bay.”
Two representatives from the Sister Islands meant that Cayman Brac and Little Cayman also outweighed both his and Mr Miller’s district, he said, demanding “an active role in democracy”.
Alice Mae Coe
The constitution requires the addition of three legislators in the LA to accommodate a growing population. Instead of redrawing electoral districts, however, boosting the current six, government has proposed placing the new lawmakers into two existing areas.
Mr Miller has been rebuffed twice already in efforts to introduce one man, one vote legislation to the LA., and said yesterday he hoped to achieve it through the petition.
“It will be interesting to see who attends” the 1pm-2pm gathering this afternoon, he said. “I think we’ll see quite a few young Caymanians in the room”, supporting the effort.
Mr McLean also last night called on Premier McKeeva Bush to step down, saying he was under investigation for a 2004 real estate deal with Atlanta-based developer Stan Thomas.
“Your premier,” he said, “is under criminal investigation. That’s what is stopping investors coming here. I call on you: If you love your country, step down. Your premier is circumventing every law in this country to get what he wants. He is breaking the laws of this country and no one is doing anything about it.”
That is why, he continued, “Mr Miller and I have to go to England to give the people’s side of the story, how he [Mr Bush] is selling this country out to one individual. Everything Mr Dart wants, he gets and it is a dangerous precedent.”
Mr Miller and Mr McLean announced last week they would travel to London, accompanied by Ms Coe, to meet Foreign and Commonwealth officials, Parliamentary groups and opposition leaders, seeking to counter Mr Bush’s influence and the looming finalisation of the Dart-government ForCayman Investment Alliance.
Mr Miller will meet Governor Duncan Taylor this morning to confirm details of the trip, scheduled for 3 March or 10 March, he said, depending on availability of UK officials.
“We have to give the governor some notification of our dates,” Mr Miller said.
