Premier: ‘One man, one vote’ cements political parties

The onset of “one man, one vote” in the form of single-member constituencies is likely to perpetuate and strengthen the existence of a two-party political system in the Cayman Islands, according to Premier Alden McLaughlin.

“Unless Cayman is different from everywhere else in the Caribbean,” he said, “the political parties are here to stay.”

In earlier Legislative Assembly debates on the issue, Mr. McLaughlin has said the politically clever move for the Progressives party, now the majority in government, would be to implement single-member voting districts straight away.

That is now what the government intends to do, he announced last week, banking on a change to “one man, one vote” well ahead of the May 2017 general election. Currently, Cayman’s multi-member voting district system allows electors from one to six votes, depending on where they live. “I shouldn’t object to the introduction of single-member constituencies because it actually does improve the chances of political parties continuing to dominate the electoral process,” the premier said during a Legislative Assembly debate earlier this year.

“This is the concern of the entire government team. To split the Cayman Islands into 18 or 19 constituencies is going to result in such small constituencies, in many instances, that the result of the elections process could be easily manipulated,” he said.

In the end, that is what the government has instructed a soon-to-be-formed Electoral Boundary Commission to do. However, the number of voting districts to be drawn by the commission were not defined.

In most Caribbean countries with single-member voting districts, two major political parties have dominated for decades. In Jamaica’s 2011 election, for instance, the People’s National Party received about 53 percent of the vote, with 47 percent of the vote going to the Jamaica Labour Party. Four other political parties that contested the election received only about 1,000 votes among them, out of more than 800,000 cast.

In the U.K., three parties split the majority of seats in the House of Commons, requiring two diametrically opposed groups, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democratic parties, to form a coalition government. “That is much more the exception than the rule,” Mr. McLaughlin said.

At the time Cayman’s referendum on “one man, one vote” was held in July 2012, the argument that single-member districts tended to support large, established political parties was often heard. Former “one man, one vote” committee co-chairperson Sharon Roulstone, one of the leaders of the electoral reform effort, said she did not disagree with that assessment.

“I think it will benefit [political] parties to a great degree; they’ll just get an army of people and plot them in each single-member constituency,” she said at the time. “It doesn’t really trouble me, if the person is good and has something to bring, the people will see what they have to offer.”

Cayman does not currently require elected representatives to live in the district in which they are elected, and if single-member constituencies are approved, there will still be no residency requirements. This supports Ms. Roulstone’s contention that political parties would be able to “plot” candidates in various districts.

However, Ms. Roulstone said at the time that the electorate was unlikely to accept the “straight party vote” mentality, particularly under the microscope of a much smaller single-member district.

“I think it’s going to be more difficult for people to ride in on coat-tails anymore,” she said. “I think the demographic of the 50-year-olds and older are the ones that are used to the handouts. The younger people are getting smarter and they want accountability as well.”

‘One man’ research

The balance of academic research regarding single-member voting districts seems to indicate that such a method of election tends to support a two-party system. That has been the case in most of the Caribbean in recent decades and in the United States.

According to research done by Australia’s Electoral Commission: “A … consequence of the first-past-the post [used in conjunction with single-member districts] is the tendency of the system to limit the range of candidates available through fear of splitting the vote. Two separate political parties with similar, but not the same policies, might decide to divide the constituencies between them rather than contesting all constituencies and splitting the vote.”

In contrast, the study argues the limitation of “minor” political parties could be seen as a positive in the formation of stable governments and in the selection of higher-quality candidates.

“Because elections are contested at the constituency level, there is a greater possibility of outstanding candidates being elected regardless of party support,” the Australia commission opined.

The Cayman Islands has been a democracy for more than 150 years, but the political party system here did not officially come into being until 2001, when what was referred to locally as a “coup” led to a change in government and fostered the beginnings of the then-United Democratic Party and the People’s Progressive Movement, now called the Progressives.

Prior to the last decade, governments formed “teams” of like-minded individuals. While some pundits and modern-day lawmakers have referred to those teams as political parties in all but name, they were not designated as such.

Research published in 2005 by the University of Essex reviewed the formation of democratic states in 78 countries around the world and uncovered numerous problems in post-colonial countries where political parties were “weakly entrenched.”

“When parties are weakly entrenched and competition is localized, single-member laws will encourage a large number of small parties and independents to run for seats in the legislature,” the University of Essex research paper stated.

The large number of “political entrepreneurs” in the small parties or independent groups lead to the emergence of under-institutionalized and poorly organized parties, the study found.

“Under these circumstances, the authoritarian successor party may well be the only electoral contender in a position to benefit from the ‘large party effect’ characteristic of single-member systems, even if its overall level of support is modest,” the University of Essex research stated. “The organizational capacity of such a party may well put it in a position to generate support across the country, allowing it to overwhelm a poorly organized and dispersed opposition.

“Over-large majorities can be expected to be de-legitimizing and threatening to democracy.”

The Australia-based research referenced earlier states that single-member district voting systems that use the “first-past-the-post” ballot counting method, as Cayman now does and would continue to do if single-member constituencies were adopted, are “widely seen as unfair.” However, the research noted that there are many advantages in a two-party dominated single-district voting system.

“Single member constituencies provide for a direct relationship between the member of the legislature and the local constituency,” the Australian Electoral Commission research states. “Second, because elections are contested at the constituency level, there can be a degree of local control over the party’s choice of candidate and parties must take some account of the constituency’s wishes when selecting a candidate.”