Opposition boycotts district councils

Premier McKeeva Bush criticised the Opposition’s boycott of the formation of advisory district councils at a meeting in George Town on Tuesday night. 

None of the Members of the Legislative Assembly from the People’s Progressive Movement attended the meeting to discuss how the George Town council would be set up Tuesday, to which Mr. Bush said they had been invited. 

“I am disappointed that the Opposition … has chosen to boycott this process. That is most unfortunate. There is room for a full cross section of representation on these councils, as it should be. 

“Their reason for not participating, they say, is they believe that council members should be elected,” Mr. Bush told the meeting attended by about 70 people in the district’s town hall. 

The Advisory District Council Law 2011, which the Opposition voted against when it was debated in the Legislative Assembly last year, states: “A council shall consist of the following members, all of whom shall be appointed by the Governor in Cabinet – a chairman, a vice chairman, a secretary, a treasurer, and not exceeding six other members at least two of whom shall … be recommended by the Leader of the Opposition”. 

Speaking to the Caymanian Compass on Wednesday, Leader of the Opposition Alden McLaughlin said his party had decided to boycott the process of recommending advisory district council members because the system was “terribly undemocratic and runs completely contrary to what the provision in the constitution intended”. 

The Cayman Islands Constitution stipulates the establishment of advisory district councils for each electoral district to advise members of the Legislative Assembly, but does not mention whether such councils should be elected or appointed. 

“[The district councils] certainly were not intended to simply be an extension of the political parties or the governing party in the district. The parties already have their own district councils,” Mr. McLaughlin said. 

“To go about this the way they have and create a structure which imposes on elected members for that district a council made up 80 per cent of people appointed on the recommendations and by the Cabinet is just wrong. All we’re going to get is a council who is pushing whatever the government policy is on a particular matter,” he said. 

Mr. McLaughlin said two other options for creating the councils could have been considered – to have the constituents of each district elect the members or to have equal representation from the parties on the councils. 

He said for the Opposition to recommend two members of the potentially 10-person council would be pointless as they would be outnumbered eight to two. “The balance is so skewed in favour of the government, you cannot possibly succeed,” he said. 

“We decided a long time ago that we are not going to participate in this and lend legitimacy to what we believe is a wholly obnoxious and undemocratic structure,” the Leader of the Opposition said. Mr. Bush argued at the meeting that if the intention of the constitution was for members of the advisory district councils to be elected, “then those persons who got MBEs for getting the constitution should have seen to it that it said so in plain language”, referring to Mr. McLaughlin being awarded an MBE last year for constitutional reform in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. 

West Bay council  

The elected members of the People’s Progressive Movement also boycotted the establishment of the West Bay Advisory District Council, which was set up with seven members in September, with two further members – Alice Mae Coe and Loxley Banks – appointed this week. 

The premier said the government had given the Opposition “ample time and opportunity to make an appointment” to the West Bay district, but had not heard back from the PPM. 

“We appointed people [in West Bay] today [Tuesday, 8 November], I think they would say they’re non-political. For instance, we appointed Mrs. Alice Mae Coe to the district council; I don’t think anyone would say she’s a supporter of mine, but she’s there and I think she can make a valid contribution … Mr. Loxley Banks is another, I think, very independent minded person and a good West Bayer, and so he has been appointed,” Mr. Bush said. 

Lawyer Steve McField, who has been working with the senior strategic adviser to Mr. Bush’s ministry, Leonard Dilbert, on the establishment of the district councils, said the Opposition had failed to fulfil their legal duty to recommend members to the district councils. 

Asked after the meeting if the Opposition’s decision not to recommend two members made the legality of the make-up of the councils questionable, Mr. McField said, “The Opposition have an obligation to do so. They are derelict in their obligations and their members ought to insist that they make the appointments under the law … We will have to see. Someone would have to challenge that to see how it goes, but if they’re derelict in their law, then I don’t know what’s going to happen.  

“That’s something we have to face when we get to it. [The law] says they have to obligation to make two recommendations … and they refuse to do so. It’s bad for the country.” 

During Tuesday’s meeting, some members of the audience strongly opposed the possibility of non-Caymanians, status holders or permanent residents nominating councillors or becoming councillors on the advisory district councils. Mr. McField told the meeting that district councillors could be drawn from any residents of a district and did not have to be electors. 

“Anyone who lives in the district, who has special qualifications, special knowledge and are suitable to be appointed, has a right to be nominated as a councillor,” Mr. McField said. 

Mr. Dilbert said the MLAs in George Town had chosen to first look at nominations from the public when determining who to recommend as members of the George Town advisory district council.  

“It is therefore in your hands to make a determination about who these people would be that you put forward. All the sensitivities being referred to by you would therefore have to be taken into account in making a decision about whose names you want to put forward,” Mr. Dilbert said. 

Mr. Dilbert said it was “highly unlikely” that any “transient person with no stake in the community somehow gets to be a member of the council” because George Town residents would not nominate someone in that category. 

Nominations for the George Town Advisory District Council will be accepted at a meeting on Tuesday, 22 November. Mr. McField said the nominations would be open and public. 

Council members are to provide advice and information to the elected member or members of their respective districts on a number of topics, including finance, tourism, development, immigration, public works, education, sports, culture and any other matters that affect the district.  

Advisory district councils have a maximum of 10 members, who could be drawn from any walk of life, Mr. Bush said, including from the civil service.  

District councils meetings will be held in public, although Mr. McField pointed out that under certain circumstances, for instance when a person’s health or financial situation is under discussion, meetings could be held in private.