Leader of the Opposition McKeeva Bush wants members of the Opposition included in any team sent to the UK to negotiate constitutional reform.
‘We will demand that we be part of the negotiating team … because we would want to be able to put our position, and the people’s position as we know it, to the United Kingdom,’ Mr. Bush told the Caymanian Compass last week.
In December 2002, Mr. Bush, then Leader of Government Business, included opposition MLA’s Kurt Tibbetts, Alden McLaughlin, Arden McLean and Edna Moyle in a Cayman delegation that discussed constitutional reform with Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials in London.
This time around, Mr. Bush expects the courtesy to be returned.
‘We would demand it, but I would suspect that we would be invited to be part of it,’ he said.
Asked whether he saw room for the opposition and government to come to some sort of consensus over constitutional reform, Mr. Bush was pessimistic.
‘The Government has not proven to be trustworthy on this whole issue. They have been hasty with it…
‘Now they are back-pedalling, simply because they have found so many people are against them, so I can’t trust their positions at this time,’ he said.
He said the Government may have attracted greater support for its proposals if it had adopted a more inclusive approach to debating constitutional reform.
He said the Opposition and Non Governmental Organisations should have been invited to present their views at public meetings on constitutional reform, rather than just Government and Constitutional Review Secretariat representatives.
‘It should have been the Government, the Opposition and NGO’s represented at the same time. That should have been the process,’ Mr. Bush said.
‘I firmly believe that I was not going to give in on some issues, but the people would have had the benefit of hearing both sides.’
Mr. Bush was speaking after a 9 April debate on the Governments’ constitutional modernisation proposals at the Seventh Day Adventists Church on Smith Road. The meeting saw CRS Deputy Director Daniel Suckoo and members of the Opposition debate constitutional reform, drawing a crowd that organisers put at over 650 – by far the biggest turn out for a constitutional meeting this year.
Mr. Bush said the loyalty of the Seventh Day Adventist Church congregation played a big part in the huge turnout, but he also pointed to the different format as a reason for the big crowd.
‘I believe more people want to see such an even keel,’ he said.
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