by Adrian Gibson

It seems that the Constitutional Referendum may never happen, since the Christie administration appears intent on throwing the Opposition under the bus having read the tea leaves and apparently concluding that it is unlikely—at this juncture—that the constitutional reform bills will be passed in a public vote.

One could discern—from the PM’s comments last week—that the government is seeking to abandon the vote by using whatever excuse allows them to save face. It appears that the Prime Minister is seeking to suggest that the vote requires total unanimity between government and Opposition and has suggested that they are waiting for resolution of the FNM’s leadership issue. It appears that the thought is to see what the FNM and its leadership does after the leadership runoff on November 21st and, if they cannot attain a unanimous vote, prorogue Parliament.

Though the governing party seems to want an absolute buy-in, the PLP has the majority of members in the House/Senate and can pass these Bills without a single Opposition vote. That said, does the government think that if brought to the public, the referendum would fail? Do they believe that it would be representative of a second consecutive referendum loss and therefore amount to a tacit vote of no confidence in the government which should lend to demands for an immediate general election?

I think that amounts to nothing short of an attempt to score cheap political brownie points when it is suggested that the Christie administration is so concerned about the democratic process within the Opposition that it will delay critical parts of their own agenda in preference to seeing to it that there are smooth and undisturbed internal elections within the FNM.

How can prorogation happen when there are hundreds of unanswered questions put forth by the Opposition that will simply die once the House is prorogued? Does this demonstrate any regard for democracy?

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First published in the The Tribune under the byline, Young Man's View, here…