INTERVENTION BY

SENATOR FRED MITCHELL

OPPOSITION SPOKESMAN ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION

ON SELECT COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO CONSTITUENCY BOUNDARIES
THE SENATE

3 October 2001

Mister President, I rise to move this request for a select committee to inquire into all matters relating to the delimitation of constituency boundaries with power to send for persons and papers, with leave to sit from place to place and with leave to sit during the recess.I thank you for your kind permission for this intervention to be taped on video this morning as I expect this to be amongst the last interventions of this term by me in this place. I shall always cherish the opportunity to have served here.

The question of constituency boundaries is a matter of increasing and pressing importance to the country and to the ability of this country to have free and fair elections.Those who wrote and approved the constitution of The Bahamas left the legal role of delimitation of boundaries to that of a committee of the House of Assembly with the addition of a Supreme Court Justice.But you will know Mr. President that it is the PLP’s public position that agrees with the Government that there ought to be an independent electoral commission, that is, one that does not have politicians deciding the boundaries.

You will also know that the PLP’s present position is that with the existing system it intends to use very opportunity to publicize the proposals of the Government on constituency boundaries and make its own proposals known in order that we might have a free and fair election.This request for a select committee of this place is an attempt to further that process.

Indeed on the Constituencies Commission itself the PLP’s representative on the Commission has asked that the hearings of the Commission be open to the public, that all of its proposals be subject to comment by the public at large and that extra parliamentary political parties ought to get an opportunity to comment upon any boundary changes.Further that all of these views ought to be incorporated into any final recommendations made by the Constituencies Commission to the Governor General on the delimitation of boundaries.So far the majority on the Commission has refused to agree with the PLP’s proposals.

In my intervention seeking to persuade this House of the need for this select committee, I intend to touch on the following: the historical context or background on the delimitation of boundaries; the law with regard to constituency boundaries; the proposals for changes to existing boundaries; the objections to those changes; the standing of the members of the Commission; and finally what the PLP’s view is about the boundaries and how they ought to change if at all.

Mister President the starting point in this intervention is the historical context.In 1965, the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA) a pressure group within the Progressive Liberal Party determined that a public strategy needed to be designed to draw attention to the move by the United Bahamian Party to table a draft boundaries order pursuant to the provisions of the constitution.The law in the then constitution of 1964 was the same as the law is today, and the draft boundaries order had to be approved by the House of Assembly.

You will no doubt recall Mr. President, the bitter disappointment of the Progressive Liberal Party in 1962 when the PLP won the popular vote but lost the General Election.And this was put largely down to the fact that the seats in the Out Islands as we then knew them outnumbered the seats in New Providence.The bulk of the population of the country lived in this island as they still do today. Yet the seats in the islands outnumbered the seats in New Providence.

The Draft Boundaries order came to be debated on 27 Aril 1965. This is a date in history known in The Bahamas as Black Tuesday and said to have been coined by Sir Arthur Foulkes who took it from the day of the Wall Street crash in 1929 that was also known as Black Tuesday. 

The PLP led a public demonstration outside the House and its party leaders led a fierce opposition to the draft boundaries order inside the House.At about midday, the Leader of the Opposition said that the UBP majority was obviously not to be persuaded, and with that the window of the eastern top of the House of Assembly was opened, Sir Lynden Pindling then grabbed the Speaker’s mace and sent it crashing down to the floor below.The mace was never found, and Arthur Hanna says some fellows later brought its pieces to him and they buried it somewhere from which place we cannot recover it.

Then the leaders of the PLP led a march down to the Southern Recreation Ground.Its leaders were conscious of the fact that the Burma Road riots were touched off by the simple breaking of a Coke bottle from a truck parked on Bay Street and they were determined that an incident of that kind would not be allowed to happen again.I believe it is true to say that 1965 was the last time that the riot act was read in the country by then Magistrate John Bailey.

And so we have been fighting for well into four decades about how to delineate boundaries of constituencies in this country.In fact just before the 1992 General Election, the Free National Movement had as one of its main objections to the process the drawing of constituency boundaries.On a campaign trip with the then member for Montagu, Orville Turnquest, he told me that the FNM was satisfied with the boundaries exercise for that election, because they were satisfied that the boundaries were drawn more or less equitably. They fought the 1992 election and won the election.To this day some of the supporters of the PLP believe that the election was lost in part because the PLP bent over backwards to accommodate the FNM's objections to the constituency boundaries.

The Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham included in the Manifesto of the Free National Movement in 1992, the platform on which it fought its first winning election, that there would be an independent Electoral Commission fashioned after the Commission in Jamaica and there is one in Guyana.That has yet to come, and probably will not come before this election because there will be no agreement on this side to deal with any constitutional reform at this late stage in the term of the FNM. The FNM has in fact run out of any mandate that it had to make any major policy changes for this country.It really should call an election now. 

I say that Mr. President because we are yet again in the country faced with scandal, charge and counter charge and this time from within the very bowels of the governing party.There can be no objection that this is the PLP merely spoiling for a fight.You have two former Cabinet ministers - and we are told a third is about to enter the fray - who have accused the FNM and members of the Cabinet of corrupt acts.In these circumstances there must be a General Election and that election should be held now and on the existing boundaries.The House ought to be dissolved within the week.

In 1966, Mr. President, Colin Hughes who wrote Race and Politics in The Bahamas, the seminal work on the history of politics in The Bahamas up to 1977, wrote that the Premier of the country Sir Roland Symonette went to the Governor at the time Sir Ralph Gray and asked him to dissolve the Parliament and call elections for 10 January 1967.In a speech to the nation by the Governor announcing that he had acceded to the Premier’s request, he told the nation that that in the circumstances of charges and counter charges of corruption against the Government in both the local media and abroad, he did not feel that the Government had the mandate to continue.In the circumstances, Sir Roland felt that he needed a fresh mandate and so the election had to be called.

This same approach ought to have happened in 1984 with regard to the Pindling Government and it did not happen.Now the present Prime Minister who spent so much time excoriating the former Prime Minister about his failure to call a General Election in the face of the Commission of Inquiry’s report of 1984 is refusing to go to the country.Instead he proposes to rule on and on as if nothing has ever happened. This is wrong and he knows better.

He must go and go now.

So Mister President we have been fighting over the question of boundaries of constituencies for over 40 years.And the Prime Minister in 1997 announced that he was reducing the number of constituencies from 49 as they then were to 40.He eliminated nine seats.The PLP did not oppose any of those reductions. But I did.I thought that the reduction of Fox Hill to its existing boundaries was most unfair to the people of Fox Hill.I also complained then that the removal at the last minute of the polling division between Cockburn Street on the east and Adderley Street on the west, the original Congo Town of Fox Hill, was an egregious act of personal spite by the Prime Minister when he heard that I was the candidate for the constituency.

I wish in that regard to quote an article written by George Mackey, the former Member of Parliament for Fox Hill in his article in The Tribune on Saturday 29 September and I quote: “Prior to the 1997 General Election, the area between Cockburn Street and Adderley Street, bordered by Bernard Road on the south and Step Street on the north was taken out of the Fox Hill constituency and placed in Montagu.The powers that be shamelessly admitted at the time, that this action was taken deliberately to prevent Mr. Fred Mitchell from winning the seat.The 600 voters there were placed in Montagu where they were not needed and were replaced by others from Sea Breeze and some areas on the south side of Prince Charles Drive which were then made a part of the Fox Hill constituency.”

Mister President, the present proposal by the Free National Movement majority on the Commission will extend that rape of the Fox Hill area even further by taking another two polling divisions out of what most people call Fox Hill and placing hem in Montagu.All that area that includes St. Anselm’s Church, the Fox Hill Post Office and Library and the Sandilands Primary School is to be taken out of the Fox Hill constituency and put into Montagu.On the other end, the polling division number five from Montagu which stretches into Culbert's Hill Road right smack into Camperdown and Winton will be added to the constituency.

I again return to George Mackey: “In the current proposed new changes to the Fox Hill constituency, the Fox Hill Parade just barely remains in the same, as it will now form part of the northern boundary.Even Sandilands School caused to be founded for the education of the children of former slaves in Fox Hill, will now be located in the Montagu Constituency, with Bernard Road now dividing the two constituencies.How ridiculous!”Ridiculous indeed!

The same separation of the community has been done in the constituency of Holy Cross, where the incumbent has lost his popularity and so the area that was used to defeat me in Fox Hill has now been removed once again to Holy Cross and two more polling divisions that were FNM strongholds moved into the constituency, with two PLP strongholds moved out, to ensure that Carl Bethel will win. Nassau Village as a community is being separated and destroyed.

In fact some people in the Oakes Field area complain that they have been shifted about from one constituency from one election to the next, so that many people have no idea what constituency they are resident.

In this morning’s Nassau Guardian, Koed Smith who is the insurgent candidate for the Mt. Moriah Constituency objected to the changes in that constituency and I quote: “ Smith said that he was concerned that the FNM majority on the Commission suggested that polling divisions three and five of the Delaporte Constituency in the Oakes Field community be added to Mt. Moriah; while Polling Divisions one and 11 of Mt. Moriah, formed out of Yellow Elder Gardens one and two are eliminated and placed into Bain Town.

“ Mr. Smith said: ‘ I strongly contend that Minister Turnquest, in his privileged and advantaged position, has made the suggestion for these changes in his effort to simply cut out of his constituency a significant portion of persons who have every right and are most qualified to mark his performance over the past nine years. What is interesting is that the people of Yellow Elder Gardens, inclusive of past FNM supporters of Minister Turnquest in his bid to be their representative again. The primary reason is that he has been absent from the constituency, not given them proper representation and is indifferent to their views or plight as constituents.”

Now the interesting thing about this Mister President is that both the PLP and the FNM agree that each constituency must be more or less 4000 voters.And the excuse given by the Majority in their statement is that in the Fox Hill area the numbers are down so they have to add polling divisions.But you ask yourself the question: if it’s only about adding numbers, why choose a polling division that just happened to have voted 244 for the FNM and 75 for the PLP in the 1997 election?Why not keep the existing polling divisions where the FNM was defeated by the PLP and also add the polling division taken out of the constituency in 1997 again where the PLP defeated the FNM?And the reasons are compelling for using the PLP’s proposals; the neighborhood of Fox Hill will stay in one piece.

As it stands, what the Prime Minister proposes to do will be a disincentive to anyone in that area of Fox Hill to register to vote or in fact if they register, it will be a disincentive to vote at all.Their vote will mean nothing to them because clearly, in their experience with the present representative for the FNM William Allen, they have received no representation at all.The reason is that he does not need their votes to get elected so he can safely ignore them. This must not be allowed to stand.

What then is the law on this issue Mr. President?The law on the issue of the delimitation of Constituency Boundaries can be found in Articles 68, 69 and 70 of the Constitution. Article 68 divides The Bahamas into a minimum of 38 constituencies and says that by reason of an Order pursuant to article 70 the Governor General may increase the number of constituencies.It also affirms what has been the position in the country since 1967, that there can only be one member for each constituency.

Article 69 constitutes the Commission as follows: The Speaker is the Chair; a Justice of the Supreme Court is there on the recommendation of the Chief Justice.That person is Ricardo Marques.Then there are two members appointed by the Governor General on the recommendation of the Prime Minister.They happen to be Dion Foulkes and Tommy Turnquest, the Deputy Leader designate and Leader designate of the FNM.The other member of the Commission is appointed on the recommendation of the Leader of the Opposition.That member is Bradley Roberts.

The Government therefore has a built-in majority. So when Dion Foulkes objects to the statements of Bradley Roberts in these proposals on the grounds that they are just proposals, it is a bit disingenuous at the every least and politically dishonest at best.The fact is they have a built-in majority and what they say goes. Judging from the last election, they do what they want without regard to what the minority has to say.

The question of the number of constituencies became an issue in the run up to the 1992 General Election.The FNM thought that there were too many seats in the country for its size.Comparisons were made to Jamaica and Trinidad and Barbados. In accordance with their campaign promise they reduced the number of seats as I have already said for the 1997 election.

But there is a difference of opinion between the FNM and the PLP on the question of the number of constituencies.The FNM said that since they brought into being Local Government there was no longer the need for the high number of seats in the Family Islands.They used that in particular to justify the seat Mayaguana, Inagua, Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay; the so-called MICAL seat.The islands are far apart and travel is difficult and expensive.But the seat has very few votes.I think that such a seat cannot be justified unless each candidate is given certain government support in order to level the playing field.Otherwise the FNM or the incumbent candidate always has the advantage.

Further, the seat is just too geographically far apart for any representative to sensibly represent those people.

What the PLP says is that electors have to be close to the elected, and the PLP's view is that this meant that there ought to be smaller constituencies so that the representatives can have closer contact with the electors.But we now say that the number of constituencies is an issue that should be determined by an Independent Electoral Commission, taking into account the views of all the people of The Bahamas including the political parties.

Now the directions to the Commission as to how they ought to go about doing their job are not very specific.They can be found in article 70 and it is here that the PLP has had a disagreement over time with the United Bahamian Party at first and its successor the Free National Movement.That difference of opinion continues today and is at the very heart of the dispute between the sides as we begin to face off in this next General Election.

Article 70 (2) says that there are two considerations in carrying out the review of constituency boundaries.First, the Commission shall be guided by the general consideration that the number of voters entitled to vote for the purposes of electing every member of the House shall so far as is reasonably practicable, be the same.Secondly it says that they ought to take account of special considerations such as the needs of sparsely populated areas, the practicality of elected members maintaining contact with electors in such areas, size, physical features, natural boundaries and geographical isolation.

Now again, the writers of the constitution did not write the paragraph disjunctively, they wrote conjunctively but it has always been interpreted disjunctively.That means that the first part of the paragraph deals mainly with New Providence or islands where the populations are large and there is one land mass like Grand Bahama or New Providence. But the second half was put in for the Family Islands.And it is that second half that I submit is offended when you have a seat like MICAL.

I think however that it applies also to New Providence and certainly to the Fox Hill constituency as the present Government proposes.When you look at the figures published by the FNM majority on the Commission and compare them to the census figures, it is clear that there are at least two thousand more voters to be found in the constituency.So there is absolutely no reason given the FNM's position that there must 4000 electors per constituency that there ought to be changes to the existing Fox Hill boundaries. And I now wish to lay on the table those figures showing the registrations of 18 September 2001 compared to the census figures supplied by the Department of Statistics

But the PLP has added another dimension to its presentation on these issues.One is that communities insofar as it is practicable ought to be kept together in drawing up the boundaries.We think that this ought to apply to Centreville.It ought to apply to a reconfigured St. Margaret’s, which should really link the subdivisions of Blair and Shirley Heights together with a bridge over the top of what used to be Ann's Town - the Kemp Road /St James area.Remember Mister President that when land was sold in Blair and in the top half of the old Centreville Subdivision, Shirley Heights, Murphyville, Buen Retiro and Shirley Slope, it was a deliberate policy to sell land only to white Bahamians. That ethnic distinction largely remains today.

And so those polling divisions would naturally fall together.But what is particularly interesting about the configurations of the majority is that they have reinforced Mr. Ingraham's apparent view that wherever there is a strong group of white Bahamians voters, the PLP has no opportunity to fight for their votes.So it is a kind of invidious backhand racism on his part saying to himself that he can always defeat the black votes in a constituency where the FNM and the PLP must fight more or less equally for votes by throwing in a white enclave, believing and counting on his belief that white Bahamians will never vote for the PLP.It is a racist view by Mr. Ingraham.

But even further it is a deliberate political manipulation of the process; direct gerrymandering of the Centreville and Shirlea seats to deny Pierre Dupuch his FNM nemesis a seat in the House of Assembly while at the same time trying to create a seemingly impossible obstacle over which the Leader of the Opposition has to climb.It is political crookedness of the first order.

Perhaps this is an appropriate place to identify the political actors in this matter. The Constitution provides the answers in Articles 69 and 70.First the members of the Commission are there. I have already identified them.But the other principle actor is the Prime Minister who has a role to play in laying the draft boundaries order before the House of Assembly.He can also modify the draft order as well.

And I know of his role personally because he came to me last week at the straw market and told me in the face that he was trying to help me by configuring the constituency of Fox Hill the way he now proposes.I told him if what he is trying to do is to help me then I don’t know what help is. 

Now Mr. President, in Article 70 (2), the language of the constitution says that the Commission shall be guided by the general consideration that the number of voters entitled to vote for the purposes of electing every member of the House of Assembly shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be the same.The emphasis here is on the phrase “the number of voters entitled to vote”. We take the same position Sir Lynden Pindling and his members took in 1965 and that is the boundaries must be drawn based on all those who are entitled to vote, that is, those who are Bahamian and over 18 and of sound mind.The census of 2000 has made available what those numbers are.And we say that the Government has not made exhaustive efforts to ensure that the registration takes place.They are still using 1960s methods to register a population that is busier than ever. We need to move to automatic registration at 18 years of age.We need mobile voter registration.And the Government has deliberately failed to register Bahamians because the under registration helps their cause by demonstrating that there is voter apathy in the country.

This does not surprise us since in 1967 when their predecessors in title the United Bahamian Party went to the country, there 5000 less voters on the rolls than in November 1962 at the previous election, according to Colin Hughes.

I would like to lay on the table the figures of those who are registered to vote as of 18 September 2001 and those who are eligible according to the census of 2000.

Now Article 70(1) says Mr. President that at intervals of five years, the boundaries ought to be reviewed and a report submitted to the Governor General.You will remember that the Governor General in this case is the father of one of the members of the Commission but it seems the objection to that will be moot since the Governor General is going to demit office on 31st October 2001.

And may I say here that it is the view amongst PLP circles that the present Prime Minister while he has the legal authority to recommend to her Majesty the appointment of another Governor General that appointment should be left to his successor in office.His mandate is at an end and with the country divided as it is over his stewardship he no longer has the moral authority to appoint a Governor General and so an acting Governor General ought to be put in place until such time as a new administration has been elected and that new Prime Minister and his Cabinet ought to be responsible for choosing the new Governor General.

The last register of voters came into effect in February 1997 and would have expired in February 2002.But the Prime Minister in an attempt to force people to register arbitrarily decided to revoke the register of 1997 and bring into force a new register as of 1 October 2001.Many people got the wrong impression that this meant that registration stopped on 30 September.It did not and does not stop even after a dissolution of Parliament.Except that those who did not get registered on the new register if the man calls an election now and they are not on the new register they will not be able to vote. 

The Prime Minister in his address to the nation two nights ago said that he was happy at the number of people who had registered.Up to that time the figure was some 110,000 people. The Parliamentary Commissioner says that there are another 30,000 people to be registered in the country. But what the census figures show, if they are to be believed, is that the Government has done a poor job at getting people registered.And the hardest job of all is getting new voters on the rolls who do not think that there is anything to get registered for.They very often think that Peter is no better than Paul.But we must get them registered.And we are still using the methods of the 1950s to get people registered in 2001.This is not a simple exercise.It is an appointment that you have to make and people are busy.So I think that the Parliamentary Commissioner must take mobile vans into the areas and get the people registered in that way.There is no other choice.

Mister President, once the Commission has reported - and the majority has said in its press release that they intend for the Commission to finish its work on 31 October 2001, they shall submit a single report to the Governor General either saying that there should be no change or recommending certain changes.The Governor General shall then cause the report to be laid before the House of Assembly.

Once that is done, the Prime Minister then causes a draft boundaries order to be laid before Parliament in the form of the draft report to the Governor General and he may make certain modifications if he chooses.So ultimately, this is an exercise of the Prime Minister.And I shall come back to his role in this and why the present exercise cannot be trusted.The Prime Minister also has the responsibility to lay before the House the reasons for the changes in the constituency boundaries.It is then for the House to say yea or nay to the changes in the boundaries.Once they are approved and come into force they have the force of law, that is, the boundaries are changed as of the new General Election.

But the clear consequence of that is that the people in the existing constituency boundaries who are moved into new constituencies are immediately abandoned by their incumbent representative because he has new fish to fry. That is what Koed Smith; the PLP’s candidate in Mt. Moriah, was speaking about in his objection to the changes.

Dr. Bernard Nottage, the Member for Kennedy, in announcing his candidates on Sunday 30 September, made the observation that there is no right of appeal from the order of the Constituencies Commission. So if a corrupt Government decides to gerrymander boundaries then there is very little that we can do.

Article 70(9) does say however that Parliament may by law provide for an appeal to the Supreme Court against a statement or recommendation submitted by the Commission.Parliament has so far refused to do so.

But I say to Dr. Nottage and others that the work of the Commission can in my view be challenged by Judicial Review.Judicial Review is a procedure that allows the courts to look at the behavior of a particular authority that has administrative or quasi- judicial powers.The Court can decide whether or not that body exercised its discretion properly. 

A challenge was brought to the findings of the Commission in 1987 but that was still born on the grounds that the person whobrought the application did not have sufficient standing in the matter.Of course the judge in the case was former Chief Justice Joaquim Gonsalves Sabola who had his own peculiar view of justice. And the result is likely to be different today.

What the Commission has to be concerned about is that it does not fetter its discretion.In other words, it cannot decide in advance what its position should be.The Commission ought to look at the facts objectively and reasonably.The courts say that the administrative authority has the responsibility and duty to act fairly.It cannot take into consideration matters that are irrelevant.In my view acting fairly must mean acting with objectivity.Given those guidelines where there are cases of gerrymandering, these must be clear cases that ought to be set aside by the courts.

But having said that, Parliament should pass right away a law which establishes the criteria for challenging the decisions of the Commission.And further, the Constituencies Commission ought to allow for extra Parliamentary parties to have their ideas viewed by the Commission.Further, there ought to be the right generally for the public to have a look at the proposals and comment upon them before the final decision is made by the Commission.All of this has been proposed by the PLP’s representative on the Commission but the majority refuses to accept that view.

The question now also arises in addition to the usual politicking and gerrymandering whether or not the whole process can be trusted having regard to the allegations of corruption made against the two members of the majority on the Constituencies Commission. The former Attorney General Tennyson Wells and the former Minister of Housing Algernon Allen have both made specific allegations against the two members of the majority and the Prime Minister and his Cabinet generally of corrupt acts during their election for the leadership of the FNM.

In the House of Assembly on Wednesday 26 September, the former Attorney General made three sets of allegations of corrupt practices.He said that contracts for construction works were given out to delegates at the special convention to elect the Leader designate and Deputy leader designate of the FNM.He also said that there were scholarships given out at a time that was close to the special convention to the children of delegates to the convention.He also said that Crown land was given out to at least one delegate of the special convention.

Understandably, the Prime Minister who is responsible for lands was incensed.He called his former Attorney General daft.He made other personal remarks that surely bordered on being unparliamentary, but were at the very least irrelevant to the charges. 

The Minister of Education responded to the allegations against him by saying that the matters were a co-incidence in some cases.And in the other case, he admitted that yes there were contracts but so what.An FNM deserves a chance. The Minister of Tourism was accused of signing off on a contract for a man who influenced the delegate selection at the special convention when he was Minister of Works, even though this was opposed by his professional staff. And then further works were given by the Ministry of Education. 

With respect to the allegations and the denials by the persons concerned, the PLP’s position is quite clear.There is a need for a public inquiry. Regardless of what the fourth estate has been trying to sell us, the Prime Minister has disproved nothing that Mr. Wells said.He has only confirmed our worst fears about what Mr. Wells said.Similarly the Minister of Education has not quashed nor disproved a single allegation made by Mr. Wells. He has only confirmed that what Mr. Wells said was true.His only quarrel is that Mr. Wells has misinterpreted his intent.And it is interesting that in the history of this country there has not been one political transition without a Commission of Inquiry following the transition.

The PLP had an inquiry following the UBP's loss.The FNM had an inquiry following the PLP’s loss.And we shall certainly be calling for an inquiry if the PLP wins the next Government.

The Prime Minister, the Ministers of Tourism and Education cannot be judge and jury for themselves.Algernon Allen and Tennyson Wells made such specific and pointed allegations and charges that a mere refutation is not enough.

Mr. Wells made the specific allegation that in at least two cases one a contractor in Acklins and another in Grand Bahama, the persons concerned who got the contracts for construction works knew nothing about construction and had to sub-contract the work out.There must be a public inquiry as to what the worth of the actual contract was.The persons themselves must be questioned under oath as to why those contracts were granted and for what purpose.The Minister and the Prime Minister have a duty to discharge an evidential burden on the improbability of co-incidence - how is a contract given to a delegate to the special convention just before or just after the vote justified as being a matter of co-incidence? This is all the more so when the person awarding the contract is a direct beneficiary of the vote of the delegate.Even if the delegate voted for someone else, the appearance smells of a rat.Mr. Wells said that it insults the intelligence of right thinking people to be asked to accept that.

And I wish to say that I understand that Mr. Wells is promising more to come. In fact the word around in the dissident circles is that there is proof that a party was paid for by Sun International for the Minister of Tourism as a victory party.There is also talk that Mr. Wells has the originals of contracts and plans to table them.There being some suggestion that those contracts tabled in the House of Assembly may have been doctored. So it might be an appropriate time to shoot a warning across the bow to the other side that if there is anything wrong with any of that data they had better correct it now.

One thinks particularly of the allegation that in order to get around the $50,000 limit for contracts that had to be approved by the Cabinet, according to Mr. Wells, the Minister granted two contracts under the limit to the same person on the same day.

Then of course I have to ask the question to my putative opponent the incumbent for the Fox Hill constituency who has a travel agency whether or not she can confirm that her travel agency received a $17,000 cheque for travel charges by the Ministry of Education.I would wish that point answered.I would find the answer to this question very interesting in light of all of the attention now being paid to gerrymandering the boundaries in Fox Hill.And I remind all Members of Parliament and Senators of the prohibition on pain of expulsion from the Parliament of engaging in contracts with the Government without at first declaring those contracts to the respective Houses of Parliament and getting the permission of that House to engage in the contract with the Government.

We come again now to the other actor in this matter, the Prime Minister who in the most crude and impolitic fashion attacked one Mohammed Harajchi at a public gathering of straw vendors.His comment was clear a violation of the rules on sub judice.But that is a rule that I think is observed as much in the breach as anything else but what I thought was interesting is the fact that Mr. Ingraham confirmed Mr. Harajchi’s entire argument.The owner of Suisse Security Bank & Trust had all along been saying that it was not the Central Bank Governor who closed down the bank.The Prime Minister confirmed in his statement that he and his colleagues presumably closed the bank.So what does that do to the confidence of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) who had us pass all these laws at gunpoint last year including a new Central Bank Act?The Act was supposed to vest complete autonomy in the Central Bank.The Act came into force on 1 January 2001.The bank was closed in March, so if the Prime Minister determined that the bank's owner was not a fit and proper person to hold a bank license what was the Central Bank Governor doing?

But the matter is relevant in that it is an example of a pattern of behavior on the part of the Prime Minister where he interferes behind the scenes in matters which he has to legal authority to interfere with.So the Constituencies Commission process is one of those that must be seen under the cloud of the Prime Minister.He is the puppet master pulling the strings of the two puppets who sit on the Constituencies Commission.

What the allegations of both Mr. Wells and Mr. Allen say and the revelations of Bradley Roberts reveal is that these are people that will go to any lengths to get what they want, including defeating the very democratic process.In these circumstances, it is not possible to have free and fair elections.It is clear that if corruption exists at a party level, corruption is more likely when the stakes are higher in a General Election.

The whole process of the Constituencies Commission then is like to be tainted by these allegations of corruption.As I said the whole Government is tainted by these allegations of corruption and in the circumstances the only thing for this Prime Minister to do is to dissolve this Parliament now and go to the country.

Golden Gates is to be destroyed as a constituency because Shane Gibson, the PLP’s nominee dared to oppose the maximum leader of the FNM.Polling divisions are moved out of Bain town in order to shore up a politically ailing Zhivargo Laing.

Carmichael is not Carmichael anymore. In the Family Islands, the only change that is made is in the Pineridge constituency where a weakened C.A. Smith needs the help of a polling division of hard core FNMs from the Lucaya constituency.

There ought to be some rules in place to prevent this kind of abuse. And the Prime Minister if he should do anything in these his last days; it should be to reform this process of political crookedness which the exercise portrays.

Each voter has a right to be able to sanction the representative who served that voter if the representative has not performed properly.What the exercise by the FNM majority on the Commission is designed to do is to defeat that right of a voter to sanction a bad MP simply by putting that MP before a completely new group of people.This is most unfair.

I think that this Select Committee can be given a limited time to come back with a report and that report ought to be submitted to the Government and to the Constituencies Commission. It ought to recommend what are appropriate changes with a more dispassionate view.

It ought to seek to prescribe what the behavior of the various actors ought be and the legal roles.There ought to be public hearings.That is the way to help the process along. And the Select Committee ought to report before 22 October 2001 to this body.

I can think of no better way to end this intervention than to remind the majority in this place of the words of the Prime Minister in 1992 when he was the Leader of the Opposition.He spoke on 11 May in the House and said the following:

“...It seems to me that The Bahamas ought to now consider very seriously following suit after many other Commonwealth countries in the world and put the whole question of a Constituencies Commission in the hands of persons who are not Members of Parliament, firstly.Make Members of Parliament an excluded group who are disqualified from serving on a Constituencies Commission… It is our considered view and judgment that boundary changes ought to be taken out of the hands of a Constituency Commission which has a majority of Government members on it.And it does not matter whether that government is the FNM or the PLP, the principle remains the same. Mr. Speaker, it is an authority, in terms of politicians cutting the boundaries, which I wouldn’t wish to have for my country and I wouldn’t wish to see in the hands of my party’s government after the next election either.The temptation to have more of the same is too great because the first thing the FNM would want to do is get even with the PLP for what they did this time.And we will have this thing going on and on, everybody trying to get even with the next one.Mr. Speaker, I would like to have the authority for that taken out of the hands of the political parties. 

“Mr. Speaker, all human beings have a temptation to pay back, that’s a natural human temptation.And our job, Mr. Speaker, as men in public life is to suppress such base instinct of mankind and take all steps to guard against it so fairness prevails.So that men don’t operate on impetuousness, on hate and spite.”

Well said oh great one.If you say what you mean and mean what you say.Do it now.

I so move Mr. President.