Three Independent Senators decided on balance to facilitate the passage of the Constitution Amendment Bill (2014). With all due respect I would like to outline what their votes have helped to bring about:
�2 No Prime Minister shall serve more than two terms. I am sure the unrepentant Senators recognised that a situation bringing this provision into play could arise in 2020 at the earliest. What was the need at this time?
�2 An MP can be recalled by people in a constituency, after a lengthy and cumbersome process, and it has been conceded with a show of magnanimity that he can be recalled after he has served for two-and-a-half years instead of the previously proposed three. He cannot be removed in his fifth year. Finally, while 35 per cent of the registered voters may elect him, it would require 66 per cent of the registered voters to remove him. This is useless and cannot be implemented.
Unthinking support has thus been given to the most evasive and callow answer possible to the problem of incompetent and uncaring Members of Parliament. I cannot believe that any intelligent person can believe that this measure will ever lead to the recall of an MP or teach anybody what it means to be the MP for a constituency. An elected MP should be taught to see himself/herself as representing the whole constituency.
�2 Disappointing fact: Three of the nine Independent Senators ignored the pleas of their colleagues and their own knowledge that the runoff provision was introduced through the backdoor, and was not subject to a proper process of education and consultation. Even they admitted that time was needed. Incidentally, I cannot make out any resemblance between this provision and proportional representation which members of the present Government advocated when they were in opposition and which some say the new law bestows.
�2 Consequences. We face the prospect of upheaval in the marginal constituencies which everybody knows are the sole target of the legislation. And we may end up with the absurdity of the eventual representative winning with a smaller percentage and fewer votes on the "second round" than in the properly constituted election held before it. The COP will not leave the Partnership and it is not likely that the votes won by any other third party will be enough to alter the results of the real election.
There is a palpable case for a longer gestation period during which, before voting, we would have learnt something about the process and the procedure. "Triangulaire" is unimpressive name-dropping and it is not a substitute for thought and knowledge. Just because it is done in France shouldn't persuade us to assume colonially that 50 million Frenchmen cannot be wrong.
Omissions. All in all, this is not the reform of the Constitution we had a right to expect before the next election. Will we be lucky enough to have some more pieces of legislation between now and the elections to deal with the following major issues?
1. The winner-take-all system which denies proportional representation; gives total charge of the economy to the winning party no matter how small its majority or its percentage of the vote relative to other parties may be; and reduces the rest to being minimally co-operative and as oppositional as possible.
2. The absolute power of prime ministers who are permitted by the Constitution to appoint and dismiss ministers and who have been described as "democratically elected dictators."
3. The fact that the Executive are also members of the Government bench in Parliament that rubber-stamps the decisions of Cabinet.
4. The relationship between the independence of the appointed Service Commissions and the wish of the elected body to take control.
5. The legitimising of local government and a creative sharing of responsibilities between local government and the governing bodies based in Parliament.
Kenneth Ramchand
St Joseph/Maracas