Former legislator Ezzard Miller says he believes the existing parliamentary impasse should be solved at the polls and not by MPs “horse trading” to fix a hung Parliament.
Miller, speaking on the 15 Nov. episode of the Cayman Compass talk show ‘The Resh Hour’, says MPs jockeying to create any new version of a PACT administration of independent MPs would still put the country at risk of a constitutional crisis if that coalition has a split down the road.
“The way we have it now everybody’s premier which is the problem with independents trying to form a government. because everybody is a premier, because there’s no prior [commonality], there’s no prior commitment to a philosophy. There’s no quiet commitment to a manifesto, there’s no quiet commitment to programmes,” Miller said.
He explained that while it is true that the government is doing certain things, “it seems like each minister says you don’t bother me and I won’t bother you, so everybody’s moving in their own direction.”
Miller said what happened Tuesday in the no-confidence vote and what is happening now with the horse trading is not what is good for the country.
“It’s an embarrassment to the country that it wasn’t sorted out at that meeting yesterday,” he said.
Miller said Premier Wayne Panton, in the aftermath of the no-confidence vote yesterday, should have gone to the governor and ask for fresh elections.
The votes on the motion, which was filed by Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart, ended 8-7 with two government ministers – André Ebanks and Juliana O’Connor-Connolly – and the Opposition’s Chris Saunders opting to abstain.
He said the two ministers refused to support the existing members of Cabinet and “yet there’s not a decision by the government to accept the defeat in Parliament”.
“One would think that if we want to continue our democracy and we want to retain our decency and integrity, having received more votes for a no-confidence vote than against it, the obvious thing to do, I think, is to go to the governor and say you want to call an election,” he said.
Miller said while the number of votes for the motion to carry did not rise to the 13 needed to force government out, he considered the abstentions from the two ministers and Saunders as votes for the motion.
He said he does not expect giving more time for MPs to form an alliance will help remedy the situation at this stage.
“There is no decisive action being taken and it seems to me that they’ve had several days now since [McKeeva Bush’s resignation]… You would have thought that if they could work something out that has some longevity to it… to take us to the next election, it certainly would have been worked out before yesterday’s meeting,” he said.
It was Bush’s resignation from PACT that triggered the hung Parliament Thursday, leaving the House with a 9-9 deadlock.
Miller said though Governor Jane Owen cannot intervene politically, it is open to her to go to the UK Secretary of State and have the Cayman Islands Constitution suspended.
This will then put her in charge.
“She appoints a cabinet to run the country and certainly we don’t want that. I believe that that’s not too far-fetched a risk if this thing drags on and we arrive at the 31st December and the budget is not approved and the government is not funded,” he said.
‘An independent government cannot work’
Miller said with the unfolding political situation he hopes voters have learnt that a government of independents cannot work.
“Ten independent people elected who have no understanding of how they’re going to govern, who have no common commitment to policies, no common commitment to philosophy and then put them in a room and expect them to govern… everybody’s premier… particularly when you have so small a majority any one of them at any time can bring the government down if they don’t get their way,” he said.
Miller added that over the PACT term there have been “plenty of reports” of grandstanding by individual ministers to get what they want.
“It is not possible for people like that to to govern effectively. Independents can get elected in Parliament. They can play a a key role in being able to look at any legislation, any policy that comes down in a very objective way without the precondition that I have to support it,” he said.
He said for the Westminster system to function effectively there has to be a two-party system.
“The reason Sir Alden (McLaughlin) managed to form two governments is because he had a core [team]. He was never, ever given a mandate. His group was never, ever given a full mandate by the people where they got enough people elected to form a government. But because he had a core that nobody could shake… and they subscribed to [a] common manifesto, he could hold them together,” he said.
Independents, he said, can work in government, but they cannot be in the majority.
He said he does not see a Progressives-led coalition being accepted by the community because “I don’t think that would represent what the electorate thought they were getting at the last election”.
Additionally, he said, if the Progressives were to get agreement for a coalition they would want the leadership position and majority of Cabinet posts.
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