Chairman of the Constitutional Commission Sean McWeeney said earlier this week that the bills for the promised constitutional referendum on gender equality may be tabled in the House of Assembly next month.
Prime Minister Perry Christie originally promised that the bills would be tabled by the end of 2013 and passed in both the House and Senate by February in time for a constitutional referendum by the end of June.
The bills relate to the proposed law change that would bring equality in the passage of citizenship to the children of Bahamian men and women.
There have been two referenda in our independent history:
The constitutional referendum of 2002 and the non-constitutional gambling referendum of 2013. All questions failed in those referenda.
McWeeney said the four draft bills are before the commission and should be presented to Cabinet in the next two to three weeks.
"There is one bill for each question to ensure that voters can have a real say and understanding," he said. "Some people may agree with some questions and disagree with others."
Once Cabinet has approved the bills they will be tabled in the House.
In both previous referenda the government and opposition split on the issue on the campaign trail. In 2002, the opposition Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) supported the bills along with the governing Free National Movement (FNM) in Parliament. The PLP then opposed them in public in the run-up to the vote. In 2013, the PLP supported web shop legalization without officially saying that and the FNM opposed it. FNM Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis, however, was for numbers before being against it once he saw the mess Prime Minister Perry Christie put himself in. In each case the referenda were, in part, proxy fights between the major political parties.
In these processes the popularity of the prime minister also came into play. In 2002, people were exhausted with Hubert Ingraham and the confusing leadership situation of the FNM. He was leader and Tommy Turnquest was leader-elect. Last year, Perry Christie made increasingly bizarre comments regarding gaming and the referendum that made him seem not up to the moment or the office. He caused the yes side some votes.
While sensible Bahamians think that there should be equality between men and women regarding how citizenship should be passed to children, based on our history with the previous referenda it is likely that another referendum will too end up a pitch battle between the parties. This might seem like a strange assessment, as the FNM conceptually supports gender equality on citizenship. However, as we saw in 2002, agreement easily turns to political war in The Bahamas when our parties see political gain possible by opposing just to defeat the enemy.
Sadly, in these battles progress gets lost. We even forget what the questions are all about. Instead, we have largely gone into the ballot box to vote against the prime minister and his party, or for the opposition leader and his. These laws may get lost in such a fight.
Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian
