The referendum gamble

Sun, Jul 27th 2014, 10:39 PM

Just over a dozen years after voting in favor of constitution amendment bills in the House of Assembly then campaigning mightily against the referendum that followed, the government of Prime Minister Perry Christie has tabled four bills aimed at eliminating gender discrimination from the constitution.
The government also announced that a referendum will be held on November 6.
With the first effort at constitutional reform a still birth, the Christie administration is asking the Bahamian people to support the upcoming referendum.
While it might be tempting to reject this effort for any number of reasons, we are hopeful that the process will be free of political posturing and partisanship, and the Bahamian people will fully support the four ballot questions.
For the government, the referendum will be a gamble.
There is still anger among the electorate after Christie ignored the results of the non-binding gaming referendum in 2013.
Christian Council President Rev. Ranford Patterson is on record saying he will not support the constitutional referendum.
"Bahamians, I believe, we don't care to hear about another referendum," said Patterson, while predicting that the turnout will be less than the 45 percent turnout in the gaming referendum.
The government also runs the risk of confusing voters through information overload. While it has kept the referendum down to the single issue of gender equality, it plans to run a referendum education campaign simultaneously with a value-added tax (VAT) education campaign.
This will be a lot to digest.
With anti-government sentiment seemingly high, there is also the gamble that the November referendum will be a referendum on the Christie administration.
Some members of government believe it is a poor strategy to go to referendum this year as a rejection of the questions could deal a huge political blow.
The government is hopeful that opposition backing will help secure widespread approval of the proposed changes.
But some FNM members who took to social media after the bills were tabled last Wednesday suggested it was time to pay back the Progressive Liberal Party for driving the 2002 constitutional reform effort to its death.
The November vote should not be a political exercise, however.
The Bahamas remains one of the only countries in the Americas with gender discrimination written into its constitution.
Wiping the supreme law clean of discriminatory language should have been achieved in 2002 when the Ingraham administration followed through on an important commitment to "eliminate the entrenched bias of the constitution against Bahamian women, which denies Bahamian women privileges and entitlements granted to Bahamian men with regard to award of citizenship to children and foreign spouses".
While opening debate on the Constitutional Amendment Bill in 2001, the first woman elected to the House, FNM member Janet Bostwick, said, "This process, to be brought to speedy conclusion, will allow Bahamian women - no matter what their status, nationality of their spouse, or the country in which their children are born - to say with dignity that their children are entitled to a most precious gift - their Bahamian heritage."
She added, "It seems unthinkable that the framers of the constitution of a modern Bahamas, as recently as 28 years ago, would have intentionally discriminated against Bahamian women. Surely, it is absurd to think that our women should not be equal citizens with men in our Commonwealth of The Bahamas."
The new effort deserves serious consideration and a reasoned approach by the electorate.
Christie is hoping for just that.
"These four bills, representing the first round of constitutional reform, are bound together by a common thread: The need to institute full equality between men and women in matters of citizenship and, more broadly, to eliminate discrimination in The Bahamas based on sex," said Christie in the House of Assembly last Wednesday.
The first bill seeks to give a child born outside The Bahamas to a Bahamian-born mother and non-Bahamian father the same automatic right to Bahamian citizenship that the constitution already gives to a child born outside The Bahamas to a Bahamian-born father and a non-Bahamian mother.
The second bill seeks to enable a Bahamian woman who marries a foreign man to pass on her Bahamian citizenship to him. However, the bill will still outlaw marriages of convenience. As it stands now, a Bahamian man is able to pass on his citizenship to his foreign wife.
The third bill seeks to reverse the law that prohibits an unwed Bahamian man from passing his citizenship to his child if he or she is born to a foreign woman. It would require proof of paternity.
The final bill seeks to make it unconstitutional for any law or any person acting in the performance of any public office to discriminate based on sex.
This would not permit same-sex marriage, the prime minister explained.
In tailoring the referendum question to the single issue of gender equality, the government might be seeking to avoid many of the issues that accompanied the 2002 referendum.
Failed effort
That referendum was a dark period in our national life.
It is hard to forget it as we refocus our attention on a similar effort being spearheaded by political leaders who urged and secured a no vote.
Opposition leader Dr. Hubert Minnis, on behalf of the opposition, is backing the effort to push through the constitutional changes.
"Though there is much which divides us in this place, let us speak with one voice when the issue is equality before the law," Minnis said in the House of Assembly.
He also noted that, "The success of this effort will require a bold and unified, multi-partisan and multi-sectoral effort on the part, not just of the political parties, but of civil society organizations, the Constitutional Commission, as well as social, civic and religious leaders."
It is too early to gauge public reaction to the announcement that another referendum will be held in just over three months.
There are distinct differences between the atmosphere that existed when Parliament passed a package of constitutional bills in 2001, and now.
Back then, the church, key areas of civil society and the community at large expressed vociferous opposition to the referendum.
It is unfortunate that the reform efforts fell victim to the politics of the day, but it is not surprising. The vote took place less than three months before the general election.
As a result of the failed referendum, The Bahamas has remained in the Dark Ages with respect to gender equality.
The 2002 referendum ballot addressed multiple issues: The creation of an independent election boundaries commission; the creation of an independent parliamentary commissioner; the removal of gender discriminating language; changing the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 60 to 65 and appellate court judges from 68 to 72 and the creation of a commission to monitor the standards of teachers nationally.
Following the failed referendum, the late Timothy Donaldson, a former Bahamian senator and the country's former ambassador to the United States, said he has always been "incensed and ashamed" by the constitutional language in the constitution. Donaldson was an advisor to the Pindling government during the constitutional negotiations in London.
"To me it's just not right," Donaldson said.
He explained that the thinking of then Prime Minister Pindling was that the provision would ensure that Haitians would not eventually take over The Bahamas, which at the time had a population of only about 220,000.
"Pindling said, 'These Haitians produce like rats'," Donaldson said. "He said they're going to produce all those children, and at some point in time, the Haitians will outnumber Bahamians. But when you make a law geared at just one particular group of people, it's certainly not a good policy."
Milestone
On December 6, 2001, Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham drew attention to the discrimination question and gave it an early highlight as the key issue in the upcoming referendum.
"The one dealing with discrimination against women is fundamental, and we propose to move that and as I understand it, there is consensus in the House in support of that particular amendment," Ingraham said.
He told Parliament that he had in hand letters from the leader of the opposition and the only third party member in the House, Dr. Bernard Nottage, that registered their support.
On January 16, 2002, members of the House of Assembly - with the exception of Nottage - approved the package of constitutional bills.
Not long after, Christie and the PLP did an about face on the matter.
Despite voting for the bills, once outside Parliament they urged voters to reject the referendum, saying the process was botched and being rushed.
The bills were introduced without a Constitution Commission appointed.
Not long after they passed, a tidal wave of opposition rose across the country.
In addition to concerns about the referendum process, there were widespread issues with how the questions were worded.
Despite calls for the government to give the process more time, a proclamation sealing February 27 as the day of the referendum was read from the steps of the Supreme Court Building on January 27.
On referendum day, a majority of voters rejected all of the questions.
The day after, Prime Minister Ingraham - who had called the referendum his last major agenda as leader of the country - said he was "ashamed" that Bahamians rejected the proposed amendments to the constitution.
Weeks later, Christie and the PLP sailed to election victory.
More than a decade later, there is a new opportunity to effect significant change to the constitution.
If the process is properly handled with a clear and focused education campaign, and if it is allowed to proceed without politicization, this could signal a milestone for the Bahamian society.
It is unfortunate the PLP derailed the critical 2002 vote. We could have been significantly advanced in our constitutional reform efforts.
That said, we are at another important moment in our national life when we as voters could maturely effect positive change, putting men and women on equal footing with respect to sacred constitutional rights.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian

 Sponsored Ads