| Opponents demand elections, reject reform process | | Print | |
| Thursday, 07 October 2010 14:13 | |||
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The Peoples Democratic Movement and the Progressive National Party are jointly demanding elections no later than December 2011 and direct negotiations with U.K. ministers on constitutional and election reform. “We demand elections to be held by July 2011 as promised, but in any event no later than December 2011,” PNP Leader Clayton Greene and PDM Leader Doug Parnell said in a joint statement Oct. 1. “We further demand that (Her Majesty’s government) outline immediately and in detail those milestones that they are concerned to have achieved before the return to democratic rule.” When Foreign Office Minister Henry Bellingham announced Sept. 20 that elections would not be held as scheduled in July 2011, he said he would issue a statement before the end of the year on the remaining milestones which will have to be met before elections can take place. But he said more time was needed to accomplish financial and constitutional reforms and to complete an investigation into government corruption. The leaders also reiterated their rejection of the Constitution and election reform process ordered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office earlier this year, but they have added the demand to have direct negotiations with U.K. ministers using their own the All Party Constitutional Commission’s Final Report. While Bellingham urged all Turks and Caicos Islanders to contribute to the FCO’s reform review being conducted by Kate Sullivan, he stated firmly that he, the foreign secretary and U.K. ministers will be the ones to make the final decisions on any changes. The statement also repeated the leaders’ rejection of allowing any non-Belongers to vote, and added a demand that the interim administration not consider applications for Belongership except for those based upon marriage. In her first draft, Sullivan recommended allowing people who have held Permanent Residency Certificates for longer than 10 years — approximately 300 people — to join more than 7,000 Belongers in voting in the next election, but only if there is not a statutory process in place for obtaining Belongership. It remains to be seen if that recommendation makes it into Sullivan’s second draft, considering the outcry against any enlargement of the franchise. And there has been a moratorium on granting Belongerships since before the interim government took over in August 2009. On Sept. 30, CARICOM issued the following statement on postponement of elections: “This recent disquieting development reinforces the view of the Caribbean Community that the imposition of direct rule is totally at odds with the development of good governance, including improved fiscal and administrative management, in the Turks and Caicos Islands – the professed aim of the policy of the British Government. That objective cannot be met by the continued disenfranchisement of the Turks and Caicos Islanders, by the denial of their inalienable right to shape their own future nor by the artificial widening of the voter base.”
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