| PDM explains Constitution meetings | | Print | |
| Written by Richard Green/richard@fptci.com | |||
| Thursday, 30 June 2011 10:47 | |||
 The People’s Democratic Party held a press conference June 29 to explain how some compromises on changes to the Turks and Caicos Islands Constitution were reached, claiming much of the credit for Leader Doug Parnell. The most notable victory in the negotiations with Foreign Minister Henry Bellingham in London on June 15-16 involved the method of elections and the makeup of the House of Assembly, said party stalwarts Floyd Seymour and Beryn Duncanson. Duncanson called the final agreed changes to be “acceptable, totally workable.” Parnell said the revised Constitution would be “a framework to return power to the people through general elections,” which he expects to happen in 2012. U.K. constitutional advisors had proposed eliminating four appointed House members and using a mixed method of elections to avoid problems with first past the post elections in small voting districts. It would have had six island members elected first past the post, with another nine elected at large in a complicated proportional system to make House membership more closely match the amount of votes received. Parnell and most members requested that all 19 members of the House be elected first past the post, 15 from single-member districts and four at large, Seymour said. But U.K. advisor Ian Hendry countered with 10 members elected from single-member districts, five at large and four appointed, which was accepted by Bellingham. Bellingham also suggested that all House members and the premier be subject to term limits, but he settled for a limit of two four-year terms only on the premier, who could be chosen premier again after passage of one term. The PDM had asked that the premier be required to be a Turks and Caicos Islander (Belonger) by descent, not by grant or by marriage, but the seven-member TCI group meeting with Bellingham did not unanimously support that request, and Bellingham did not assent to it, Seymour said. Parnell said that the PDM’s position is that all House members and premier must be Turks and Caicos Islanders by descent, not by grant or by marriage. The PDM also backed a provision that 25 percent of voters could petition the government to hold referendums on important matters, but again the group was not together on that request, which failed to be included, Seymour said. In addition to Parnell, other members of the TCI group who met with Bellingham in the U.K. included Progressive National Party Leader Clayton Greene; Consultative Forum Chairwoman Lillian Misick; Advisory Council Member Doreen Quelch-Missick; Wendal Swann, former chairman of the All-Party Commission on the Constitution and Electoral Reform; Pastor Bradley Handfield; and Youth Ambassador Trevon Farrington. Friction between Misick and Quelch-Missick and the party leaders emerged in opening statements in London in which they criticized the party leaders and party politics. Both Misick and Quelch-Missick expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the negotiations. Neither party leader recognizes the legitimacy of the council and the forum, nor did they participate in negotiations on the Constitution, instead offering their own recommendations. Parnell said he was hurt by what he described as “hatred” expressed by Misick and Quelch-Missick. “I expected more of them, and we did not get it,” Parnell said. “They were wrong.” The leader said both needed “to get in right thinking with the people of the Turks and Caicos Islands.”
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