There are other objectionable provisions in the draft Constitution that are familiar to us in Anguilla. The section 51 restriction on Montserratians who have travelled, and been so lucky and enterprising as to have acquired a second passport, from being able to be nominated and elected to the Legislature is most objectionable. It repeats the provision in the old Constitution. One would have thought that preparing a brand new Constitution would have been the opportunity to remove such an anachronism. It should form no part of a modern Overseas Territory Constitution.
Section 81 and the following sections set up a Public Service Commission, but it is a powerless institution. It has the right to consult only on public service appointments and on matters of discipline.
No FCO-appointed Governor or his deputy should have total power over the appointment and discipline of public servants in a BritishOverseasTerritory. He should be obliged to follow the advice of a PSC, except, perhaps, for the highest ranks, where consultation with the Chief Minister might be appropriate. Similarly for teachers and the police force.
I note that section 84 expresses a hope that one day a Public Service Act might one day be passed that will oblige the Governor to act on the advice of the PSC. Such a hope is not good enough. The Constitution should require it to be done.
Nearly three weeks have passed since the elections.And, nothing has tickled my fancy or made me clench my teeth in dismay. I have nothing to report on, except that Sutcliffe Hodge filed his election petition against Evans McNiel Rogers’ election this morning. I am as relaxed as fresh road kill.
I hope everyone else is as laid-back and worry-free.
Some reflections on the elections.I am happy with the election results. I have no doubt that the Anguillian electorate has spoken loudly and clearly. Congratulations to the victors, and commiserations to the losers. Better luck next time. And, there will be a next time, perhaps sooner than we all realise.
This is DeFosto’s satirical calypso on Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s palace that he has just had government build for him in the heart of Port of Spain in Trinidad. The music reflects so clearly what Anguillians thought about the United Front Party and the incumbent politicians that I invite you to look at it to get a sense of how relieved we all are in Anguilla at the outcome of yesterday’s elections.
The elections are not completely over. The likelihood is that, in the coming weeks, Sutcliffe Hodge will challenge Neil Rogers’ victory in the courts. To this day, Neil has refused to demonstrate something that only he can do, and that would have cost him nothing: that he has effectively renounced his US citizenship, something that he is required to do under our Constitution if he is to be legally qualified to sit in the House of Assembly.
Will the Hon Hubert Hughes, our new Chief Minister, remember James Frankel of La Samana hotel in St Maarten? In about 1979 Frankel was given an Aliens Landholding Licence by the Government of Anguilla to purchase land at MaundaysBay from Emile Gumbs, and to lease more of it from Government. He began building what was to become the Cap Juluca hotel. The following year, during the election campaign, Hubert took as one of his main campaign planks a threat to force Frankel to re-negotiate the Licence. He said he wanted to see more density on the beach. Now, a licence of this sort, which contains mutual undertakings and promises by both government and the developer, can be considered a contract. Ronald Webster made Hubert Minister of Tourism in the new government that took office in 1980. Hubert continued to make it clear to Frankel that his licence was not going to be honoured. Frankel sued the Government for anticipatory breach of his licence agreement. I do not know what advice the A-G gave government. But, government hurriedly agreed with Frankel that in exchange for his dropping the suit, he could sell his licence and project for a goodly profit to Friedland and Hickox, who became the next developers of the hotel. If Frankel had continued with the case, the likelihood is great that Government would have lost it, and been ordered to pay him substantial damages. Will Hubert make the same mistake all over again, as he is promising to do?
Congratulations are due to the IT team which put together a brilliant website to cover the results as they were coming out. If you have not seen the web pages before, you can get the election details here. The elections map which showed the results as they developed was particularly good. Congratulations again to Rudy Webster, Romero Kelsick, Garson Kelsick, Ludwig Grant, Damien Harrigan, Vaughn Hazell, Roxanne Romney, Duquaine Brooks, Dwayne Smith, and Karenda Brooks. You did a magnificent job of bringing the elections to those of us who stayed home glued to our computer screens. Don’t put away the software just yet!
Well, there, I have voted.I really don’t want to write anything on the elections taking place in Anguilla today. There is this irrational, but visceral, fear that, whatever I write, I’ll end up putting ‘goat mouth’ on the outcome. So, I shall just keep quiet about my hopes and fears for the results expected late tonight.
One comment I feel obliged to make is that I found the atmosphere in the line of voters at the RoadMethodistChurch to be very light hearted. Everyone seemed to share the same unbelievably friendly and gregarious mood. There were no scowling faces and menacing looks as I have experienced in previous elections. Everyone was chatting and laughing with everyone else. And, the large number of people that were there standing in queue from early was itself unusual.
I can only hope that these are good omens for the future.
The United Front? I received a cartoon today in the mail that I thought I would share with you. It shows the members of the United Front in the best light that I know. Here it is:
I believe it is called "a nest of vipers". Do you recognise the snakes in the grass? Will they succeed in seducing the voters of Anguilla in the upcoming elections? Only time will tell.
ALHCS Debates. The student and staff members of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School Literary and Debating Society have organized a series of debates among the political candidates in the upcoming general elections in Anguilla. The exercise is not only meant as a contribution to the discourse leading up to the elections, it is also a praise-worthy effort to raise much-needed funds for the members of the Society to pay their airfares and hotel expenses in attending the next Leeward Islands Debating Competition for High Schools. The timetable for the debates among the political candidates has been published for some time. The Anguillian Newspaper published a story on the topic in its issue of 29 December 2009.
The first debate was held yesterday. It was intended for the three candidates from the West End constituency to show what stuff they are made of. The participants were to be Wilmoth Hodge for the APP, Walcott Richardson for the AUM, and Kenswick Richardson for the now discredited AUF. Only Wilmoth Hodge turned up. The cowardly candidates of the other two parties failed to show up, leaving Wilmoth alone to field all the questions. He answered valiantly the multitude of issues put to him by the young members of the Debating Society. By all accounts, he acquitted himself well.
When our young people fail to meet our expectations, we are quick to jump all over them, none more so than me. When they do something worthwhile and creditable, they deserve all our encouragement and congratulations. Shame on you both, Walcott and Kenswick Richardson.
Other competing and contrasting views can be read here, and here.
The big question in the tourism industry of Anguilla today is how long can Cap Juluca afford to carry the golf course? Even Adam Aron’s backers will run out of money and patience one day. You work out the math. The figures were widely circulated a year ago when Flag Luxury Resorts was threatening to shut down the course. It was said to cost US$6,000 per day just to water the grass. That is US$180,000 per month. There are other costs besides the water. Another figure widely circulated was that Flag lost US$3.9 million on the course in the last year of operations. That is US$300,000 per month. And the story in circulation is that Cap Juluca has promised to keep the course open for up to six months. Keeping that promise would cost them between US$1 and US$2 million in operating costs. At US$225 per round, between 44 and 88, say 66, golfers per day will have to be found just to break even. Given the uncertainties, it is not likely that many golfers are going to visit Anguilla for the purpose of playing golf. Certainly, few will bear the burden of bringing their clubs with them. Business will have to depend on the occasional drop-in. The course will be lucky to attract even 10% of the numbers required to break even.
It will have become obvious to Cap Juluca before the end of January that good money is only being poured after bad.
I don’t think Cap Juluca is in the charity business.
The well is never bottomless.
We are reminded that the lunch is never free.
And, Santa Claus does not exist.
I would not be so pessimistic if I thought this was anything other than a very expensive campaign contribution.
Is it an offence for a political party to fly in voters from the USA, Europe and the Caribbean to vote in Anguilla’s upcoming elections? A lawyer’s answer might be that it is not an offence if such generosity is not caught by section 73 of the Elections Act. You can read the section for yourself, and be the judge. The relevant part of section 73 reads:
Bribery
73. (1) The following persons are guilty of bribery within the meaning of this Act
(a) every person who, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, gives, lends, or agrees to give or lend, or offers, promises, or promises to procure or to endeavour to procure any money or valuable consideration to or for any voter, or to or for any person on behalf of any voter, or to or for any other person in order lo induce any voter to vote or refrain from voting, or corruptly does any of those acts on account of any voter having voted or refrained from voting at any election;
(b) every person who, directly or indirectly, by himself or by any other person on his behalf, gives or procures, or agrees to give or to procure, or offers, promises, or promises to procure or to endeavour to procure, any office, place or employment to or for any voter, or to or for any person on behalf of any voter, or to or for any other person in order to induce the voter to vote or refrain from voting, or corruptly does any of those acts on account of any voter having voted or refrained from voting at any election; . . .
Paragraphs (a) and (b) set out the two most important bribery offences for the purpose of elections. There are several other more specialised forms of bribery, but we need not look at them here. The two main offences under section 73 are the paying or promising to pay any money or other valuable consideration to any person to induce any person to vote for a particular candidate, or to refrain from voting for any particular candidate. That would clearly include a gift of cash, or a fridge, or a TV set. Any person who is offered any cash or other gift to secure his or her vote should make a report to a senior police officer, and to his candidate. Any person who knows of any bribe that has been given to any other person to induce them to vote a particular way, has a legal duty to report that situation to a senior police officer.
This corrupt transaction happens routinely in every Anguillian general election. We all wink knowingly at each other and discuss the various truck loads of building material and household equipment that is alleged to be supplied by some candidates in order to induce their constituents to vote for them on election day. This is bribery, and it should be reported to the police and to your candidate when you have evidence of it happening.
A gift of an airfare is no different to the gift of a fridge. We all know of cases where it has been alleged that certain politicians pay the airfare for their supporters living in other countries to come home for a holiday at election time and to vote for them. This paying of airfare is bribery under section 73 of the Act, as it amounts to the prohibited “any other valuable consideration” given in order to induce the voter to vote a certain way.
Where there is any evidence that airfares have been paid by a political party for persons to return to Anguilla to vote, it should be reported to a senior police officer. Report it as well to your candidate, so that he or she can not only begin to prepare an election petition in case the election is stolen, but also for the purpose of getting on the back of the police to ensure that they do an investigation and bring any necessary prosecution.
Paragraph (b) deals with the bribe of offering to get a job, or place of employment, for any voter in order to induce the voter to vote or to refrain from voting in a particular way. Any campaigner who makes such a promise, or pays such a bribe on behalf of the candidate, makes the candidate liable if the court is satisfied that the candidate knew about it.
If you have information of any of these offences being committed, report it to a senior police officer and to your candidate. The penalty for bribery is a fine of $19,200.00 or a term of imprisonment of 6 months. Additionally, any person convicted of bribery is disqualified from being registered as a voter or as a candidate for elections for a period of 7 years. If a candidate is convicted for bribery after he has been elected, he loses his seat and cannot stand in elections again for 7 years.
How do I object to a fraudulent voter in my constituency? Now that we have continuous registration of voters in Anguilla, there is a heavy burden placed on the Electoral Registration Officer, Priscilla Gumbs, to make sure that, after 1 January 2009, she checks each new voter’s application for registration. Her questioning of applicants to be registered during 2009 is now the first line of defence against voter registration fraud in the process of continual registration. The applicant is required to attend personally before her, and to make himself available to be questioned, and made to produce evidence of residence and other qualifications.
It is not every Anguillian who is entitled to vote in Anguilla. We have to be qualified Anguillians or belongers, and we must not be subject to one of the statutory disqualifications. So, for example, any Anguillian, who has been certified as insane, or convicted of an elections offence, is disqualified from voting.
The second line of defence against fraudulent registration of voters is the 'objection'. This is provided for by the Election Registration Regulations. I understand there have been objections in the past, and some appeals have even gone up to the Magistrate's Court. That is as it should be.
By Regulation 36, any voter in the Electoral District in question may object to the registration of any person whose name is included in the published list of claimants. Thus, no voter from outside District 5 can object to any person who is registered as a voter in District 5. The objection is made by filing the appropriate form of ‘notice of objection’ which is obtained from the Electoral Registration Office. Such notice is to be delivered not later than 15 days after the first day of publishing the quarterly list of voters. For this quarter, that date was 26 November 2009.
“I am an Anguillian. General elections are around the corner. I am not on the Voters’ List. How do I get registered to be able to vote?” I am sorry, the answer is that it is now too late. The final preliminary list of voters before the next general elections is being prepared right now. No more names can be added to it.
Section 14 of the Elections Act provides that, not later than the 72nd day of every quarter, the Electoral Registration Officer shall prepare and publish a Preliminary List of voters for every Electoral District. The 72 day of this fourth quarter in 2009 will be 11 December 2009. These Preliminary Lists for each Electoral District constitute the register of voters. So, if the Chief Minister calls elections in February 2010, the register of voters will be the list prepared in the quarter October–December 2009 and duly published. Persons who may have applied to be added in December 2009 or in January and February 2010 will not be eligible to vote.
Regulation 27 provides that after the enumeration year 2008 ended, a person who was qualified to be on the list but who was not registered for the particular Electoral District, might have appeared in person at the Central Electoral Office and submitted an application in Form 9 to be registered. Similar applications could have been made to correct errors in the list. The Regulation gives the Electoral Registration Officer the power to make inquiries to determine whether the applicant is qualified. Every political party in Anguilla, knowing that elections were due by March 2010, would have been busy registering supporters all during the year 2009.
Note that the Regulation requires that the applicant must have appeared in person before the Electoral Registration Officer and submitted their application to be added to the list. No politician or their campaign assistants was permitted to fill out the forms, have the applicant in St Maarten or St Thomas sign the form, obtain a photocopy of the applicant’s passport, and bring the forms in to the Central Electoral Office and register them. The person applying to be put on the list of voters had to come in personally, allow the Electoral Registration Officer to ask questions and satisfy herself that the person appearing before her, and signing the form before her, was the same person as the person in the passport. This procedure of personal appearance is, no doubt, meant to make it difficult, if not impossible, for electoral fraud to occur in this continuous registration procedure.
When the Electoral Registration Officer was satisfied that the person was qualified to be registered as a voter, she gave the applicant a certificate of provisional registration in Form 12. The name, address, and occupation of the applicant was then entered on the Quarterly List of Voters for the relevant Electoral District. From those quarterly lists, the preliminary list is now being prepared.
Section 16 of the Act is an important section in connection with these time-lines. The section provides a procedure to be followed, if time for anything needs to be extended, or if there was any error or irregularity in matter of form that needs to be validated. The Governor in Council is empowered to make a Regulation extending the time or validating the irregularity. However, the Regulation does not take effect until it is approved by a resolution of the House of Assembly.
No Anguillian, or belonger of Anguilla, is qualified to be put on the voters' list unless he or she is resident in Anguilla. Just because I am an Anguillian, or a belonger of Anguilla, does not qualify me to be placed on the voters' list. I must also be a resident of Anguilla.
Residence is not easy or automatic. Until I looked up the law, even I was mistaken in my assumptions about what constitutes residence for the purpose of registration on the list of voters.
There are three pieces of law that mention the residence qualification, (i) The Constitution, (ii) The Elections Act; and (iii) The Elections Regulations. The first and most important is the Constitution.
Section 43 of the 1982 Anguilla Constitution sets out the residence qualification in these words:
Qualification of voters
43. (1) Subject to the next following subsection a person shall be qualified to be registered as a voter in an electoral district if he is of the age of eighteen years and upwards and—
(a) is a BritishDependentTerritories citizen born in Anguilla, and is domiciled there at the qualifying date; or
(b) (i) is a person who belongs to Anguilla who has resided in Anguilla for a period of not less than twelve months immediately before the qualifying date, and is domiciled there at that date, and is the lawful spouse, widow or widower, or the son or daughter or the spouse of such son or daughter of a person who was born in Anguilla; or
(ii) is a person who belongs to Anguilla who is domiciled in Anguilla and has resided there for a period of at least five years immediately before the qualifying date; and
(c) is at the qualifying date resident in the electoral district in which he claims to be registered.
According to section 43, the first group of qualified voters are those who are (i) a British Dependent Territories Citizens, (ii) born in Anguilla, (iii) domiciled there at the qualifying date; and (iv) resident in the electoral district in which they claim to be registered at the qualifying date. There is no minimum time that a born Anguillian must have resided in Anguilla before the qualifying date. But, as we shall see, there is a minimum time for belongers.
The second group of voters consists of persons who are (i) the foreign-born spouses or children of born Anguillians; who on the qualifying date (ii) have become belongers; and (iii) have resided in Anguilla for a period of not less than 12 months before the qualifying date; and (iv) are resident in the electoral district in which they claim to be registered. So, the US or Canadian or Dominican spouse or child of a born Anguillian, who has his or her belonger certificate, and has had a home in Anguilla for at least one year before the qualifying date, is entitled to be registered and to vote.
The third group of qualified voters consists of persons who on the qualifying date (i) are belongers of Anguilla; and (ii) have resided in Anguilla for at least 5 years; and (iii) are resident in the electoral districts in which they claim to be registered. So, the US or Canadian or Dominican citizen who has no blood connection with Anguilla, but who has his or her belonger certificate, and has had a home in Anguilla for at least 5 years before the qualifying date, is entitled to be registered and to vote.
We can say that there are three categories of persons in Anguilla who are qualified to be registered to vote. They are (i) born Anguillians; (ii) the foreign-born spouses and children of born Anguillians who have resided in Anguilla for not less than 12 months; and (iii) belongers who have resided in Anguilla for not less than 5 years.
For all practical purposes, the only common qualification for all three categories of Anguillian voters is that they must be 18 years of age or over, and must reside in Anguilla and, in particular, must reside in their electoral district.
The question of residence is thus of paramount importance. The problem for the layman is that the words “resident” or “residence” are nowhere defined in the Constitution. Nor are they defined in any other applicable statute.
We have to turn to the common law. And, this is where we all get a wake-up call. There is a lot of law and learning on what 'residence' means for the purposes of elections. We have to go back into the old common law of England, before the Representation of the People Act 1948, to learn what 'residence' means at common law. At common law a person's residence is by implication that person's home, where he or she has a sleeping apartment, or shares one. Merely sleeping on the premises is not conclusive of residence. What is required is a considerable degree of permanence. A guest in someone's home, or a trespasser, or a person unlawfully in occupation like a squatter, is not resident for the purpose of registration as a voter. There are cases that have decided those points. The law is that you must be able to prove that the claimed residence is your home.
A person may, as a question of fact, have only one residence or he or she may have more than one residence. I may own a home in IslandHarbour and another home in North Hill. If I occasionally stay in one, and occasionally in the other, I am in fact resident in both places. I may, for example, have my wife and children in one home, and my mistress and her children in another home. I can choose which of the two I prefer to be registered in for the purpose of elections. Just owning a house in two constituencies is not sufficient. If I live in North Hill and own a house in East End in which I never live, and in which I have no intention of ever living, does not qualify my East End house as my residence. If I have my home in IslandHarbour, but I built a house in West End, and I have leased it out, I am resident only in IslandHarbour. I am not resident in West End for the purposes of elections.
A person may, at common law, be resident at an address even though he is temporarily absent from it. An Anguillian living and working in the United States, but who maintains a home in Anguilla, and who intends to return to Anguilla to live in it before he dies, is said to be 'constructively' resident in Anguilla. Such a person is entitled to be on the voters' list and to return to Anguilla to vote when elections are called. That privilege does not extend to the Anguillian who sold or leased out his home and emigrated to the USA and is living there. Such an Anguillian is disqualified from registration as a voter in Anguilla.
The bottom line is that an Anguillian who has resided in New York for years is not automatically entitled to vote in Anguilla. He has to be able to prove residence in Anguilla according to common law.
Anguilla still waits for the green light to increase borrowing. A collective sigh of relief
went through the civil service today. Salaries were paid. At last week's press conference the Hon Chief Minister had mentioned that there was some doubt that government would be able to meet salaries unless the British FCO permitted the Ministry of Finance to increase borrowing. However, salaries were paid today.
We will all recall that Anguilla is at the maximum permitted limit of its borrowing. We need permission from the FCO to borrow more. Osborne Fleming, speaking in his capacity as Chief Minister, assured us last week that he was certain that the local banks would not have any problem in lending to his government, regardless of whether or not the British approved the borrowing. Of course, as active, serving Chairman of the Board of Directors of Anguilla’s oldest indigenous bank, the Caribbean Commercial Bank, he should know.
It was back in the month of July when the Chief Minister took a high-powered delegation to London to try to persuade the British to permit him to borrow more than was allowed. He did not tell us what he put in his presentation to the British. It was all highly classified. No one in the public domain in Anguilla has ever seen the application to borrow. Most importantly, we do not know what proposals he made to assure the British that we would be able to raise the additional revenue to repay the extra borrowing.
In the event, the British refused to permit the borrowing on the basis of the application presented to them. As Hubert Hughes, senior opposition member of the Anguilla House of Assembly, pointed out, the reason the British refused our application to borrow more was that government had no plan for repayment. We cannot be sure as neither the local government nor the British have published what it was they responded to the Anguillian government.
The likelihood is that they are not objecting to Anguilla borrowing. There is not likely to be any suggestion that Anguilla is not entitled to borrow. The British are probably only asking the reasonable question, “Show us how you propose to pay back the borrowing.” It is noticeable that the government of Anguilla has singularly failed to show us the application they made to the British to permit the extension in Anguillla’s borrowing powers. Nor have they shown us the British response asking for more information. They ask us to believe that the British are being unreasonable. Sorry, I do not accept such a request for blind allegiance. I consider it more likely that the British are being very sensible and cautious. “Show us how you intend to reduce expenditure, and to increase revenue to repay the increased borrowing, and you will have our permission.” That is all it is likely to be about.
It was only in April of last year that the Anguillian Newspaper warned that we must be careful how we borrow.
There is however reason for caution. The fact that Britain has responsibility for Anguilla serves as a safeguard for money lenders in addition to the island’s own financial resources, but there is always the danger of over-extending one’s capacity to the extent that difficulties could arise if due care is not taken. Anguilla must avoid ever finding itself in a debt-ridden situation where, although the economy is buoyant, there is still a heavy burden on the national purse to meet the requirements of the Government’s loan commitments with ease.
So, when earlier this month, the Minister of Finance proposed in the House of Assembly a motion to approve the borrowing that had been rejected by the British, all ears were open to hear what his answer to the British was. Would he announce how he was going to reduce expenditure in this election year? Was he going to explain how he proposed to increase government revenue by increasing taxation in this pre-election year? Well, we were all disappointed. To this date he has not published one word on what the British are asking him to do, nor one syllable of his answer to them on what he will do to ensure that Anguilla is able to repay the increased borrowing. Government ministers, being a majority of the House of Assembly, easily approved the motion to borrow. This motion was rushed to London with a renewed application to increase borrowing. London’s response, if any, has been concealed from us.
We are a short six months maximum from the next general elections.
What is the betting there will be no budget as usual in December of this year? The explanation will be that it is not appropriate for the outgoing government to tie the hands of the government that will take office in March or April of next year. As an apparent act of generosity and fairness, it will be left to the new government to decide on their budget.
The reality is that Victor will not dare to publish to the Anguillian public what it was that the British were demanding of him, nor will he dare to publish what exactly were the new taxes he proposed to collect to pay off the borrowing.
It is a matter of local politics. It is nothing to do with Britishincalcitrance and unreasonableness. It is simply a matter of unwillingness to publish and admit the need for new taxes in the run-up to the general elections.
Two questions arise:
Have the British responded to government's request for an increase in borrowing?
And, if the British have approved the borrowing, how long will it take for Victor to tell us what undertakings he gave the British to secure their approval. We have a right to know. After all, it will have been a promise to increase our taxes.
That is the only way he is going to get their approval.
As an Anguillian, how do I get registered to vote?Getting registered to vote in Anguilla has never been easier.The law provides for a system of continuous voter registration.If you are over 18 years of age, and you are not on the voters list, get registered.Pricilla Gumbs is the Electoral Registration Officer.She has explained how it is done.Go and see her at the Passport Office, or telephone her, if you have any question.
Priscilla Gumbs and Chantel Ruan
If you are young, never voted before, but are qualified to vote, make sure you are registered this week. You never know when the next elections will be called.
Anguilla needs a spring cleaning. Sweep them out, sweep them out. It is time to sweep them all out.
The APP needs your vote in the upcoming elections.
Who will we be voting for, and why?The people of Anguilla go to the polls sometime in the next few months.A few words on who we will be voting for, and why, are in order.Petty used to do most of the writing and explaining in this area, but since he is Supervisor of Elections, he has been keeping his oar dry.Let us take a first look at how we vote and why in very general terms.
The Anguillian system of representation and government is the Westminster system.This is quite different from the USPresidential system.Most of us are familiar with the US system from looking at TV coverage of the recent elections there.In brief, the US system can be described as follows.The people elect both the Executive and the Legislature.Everyone gets to vote for the President.They also vote for members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.The winner of the contest for President then appoints his cronies and hangers-on to his Cabinet.The checks and balance are that the Senate must approve his appointments to Cabinet.The system was deliberately designed by the first great US statesmen.It was the product of thought and debate, and has lasted for over 200 years.
The Westminster System evolved in England over a period of 900 years.In the days of the British Empire, it was transferred to all the countries ruled by Britain.It continues to live on in the Commonwealth today.This is true even in those countries that are republics which have replaced the Queen by a President.In the Commonwealth, the people elect representatives to a Parliament.The parliamentarians appoint the executive.The people have no say in who becomes Prime Minister or Premier or Chief Minister.After the supervisor of elections has declared which party has won the most seats in parliament, the party leader can expect to become the next chief minister.The party leader goes to the head of state, the president or the monarch, or the governor in our case.The party leader informs the governor that he or she has the control of the parliament.The governor appoints him or her as the chief minister.The chief minister appoints the members of cabinet from among the members of parliament.The executive thus sits in the legislature, and controls it from within.
It is a representative system that was wrung by the people through force and conflict out of the hands of the hereditary kings and nobles who claimed to rule by divine right.Unlike the US system, it was not the product of any thought or planning.To this day, there is no written British Constitution.Much of the practical working of the British Constitution rests on practice and convention.Vitally important constitutional principles are not laid down authoritatively in any statutory document.Academics and politicians argue to this day over what exactly are the basic principles of the British Constitution.As with all such accidental systems, it transfers to other countries very badly.The British Constitution works fairly well in practice in the UK.It has been a disaster for most of the ex-colonies who have adopted it without adequate safeguards.
An essential characteristic of the British Constitution is that it retains the forms of absolute rule, while insisting on democratic rule in practice.The freedoms of the British have been won by them through centuries of conflict, including the execution and forced abdication of kings.No such struggle of the people occurred in the vast majority of the ex-colonies.Coming so recently out of a system of absolute colonial rule, our traditions of democracy and liberty are weak.The result is that the executive branch holds all the strings of power, both formally and informally.There are few, if any, checks and balances.The Westminster system has been described as a dictatorship of the Prime Minister.Absolute rule has been transferred to the Prime Minister and his colleagues.This is so everywhere except in the UK, where the press, parliament and the people ensure practical limits to abuse.Most of the time, anyway.
With no checks and balances in our colonial Constitution, we the people are left with no remedy except to throw them out every five or ten years and hope a new lot will do better.
That is why I will vote APP this coming election.There is no alternative.If my favoured candidate’s party wins, and they do a good job for the first five years, I’ll vote for another five years.If they do a good job for ten years, it will still be time to change them in the end, by voting for a new lot of representatives.
In the absence of a whole raft of checks and balances, it is the only tool we have for insisting on good governance.
