Joseph Clears the Air on ALP Gerrymandering

Details

Politics

Tuesday, 12 February 2013 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua st. john's - Member of Parliament for St. Mary’s North Molwyn Joseph has sought to dispel allegations of what he called “systematic gerrymandering” during the years of the former Government.

While speaking on the radio show Fire and Steel, Joseph said there is an impression in the public domain that the former ALP Government had engaged in forms of gerrymandering, with massive constituency changes comparable to those proposed by the current Government.

Joseph contends that during the ALP’s 28 years of governing, never had changes of such scale or significance taken place.
 
According to Joseph, the only major change to constituencies that had taken place under the ALP were those leading up to the 1984 election, where the constituency of All Saints was split in two, becoming All Saint’s East & Saint Luke and All Saints West.
 
“Let the record show, that it was only in one single year, leading up to the 1984 election, there were any, what I would call, major change. And even those major changes, nobody could have accused the labor party, at least I would say nobody, but there is no evidence that there was any attempt to gerrymander.”

Joseph compared this to the current changes proposed by the Government. Joseph stated that Jennings, which according to him is the base of the St. Mary’s North Constituency, would be removed from St. Mary’s North, seriously affecting the representation in that area.

Additionally, Joseph spoke about the changes proposed for St. Philip’s North, where Robin Yearwood is the current representative. Joseph contends that the St. Philip’s North constituency will be merged into another constituency, leaving Yearwood without a constituency all together.

Joseph also noted that even in 2009, when the UPP proposed changes to constituencies, the ALP agreed to the changes because they followed the constitution.

“The people of Antigua and Barbuda must see the distinct difference. We’ve never had this sort of thing in the history of Antigua and Barbuda. Even under the UPP in 2009, the changes were agreed to by the Labor Party representative, because it is the changes as contemplated by the constitution of Antigua and Barbuda.”

• < Prev
• Next >