ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES COMMISSION REPORT REJECTED!

If there’s one certainty about Cayman’s next general election due next year, it’s that it will be conducted with the existing districts, constituencies, and electoral boundaries. The Cayman Islands currently has 19 single member electoral districts.

Those will remain unchanged despite a comprehensive review detailed in a 100-page report submitted to the Government last year by the 2023 Electoral and Boundaries Commission(EBC).

The Cayman Islands Government (CIG) Cabinet meeting report of June 27th 2024, which only started circulating publicly in the past week, confirms that the United People’s Movement(UPM) administration has rejected the recommendations of the Electoral Boundary Commission appointed in January 2023.

“At this meeting Cabinet approved the tabling of a Motion in the upcoming meeting of Parliament by the Hon. Premier proposing the acceptance of an Order from the Governor to reject all recommendations contained in the 2023 Electoral Boundary Commission Report and to seek the Governor’s support in accordance with Section 89 (1) of the Constitution, to establish a new Electoral Boundary Commission with revised Terms of Reference (TOR) to ensure equitable representation and comprehensive consultation.”

That means that the EBC report to review the district and constituency boundaries has been effectively ‘sent back to the drawing board’.

It’s still not clear why the report was rejected as no reason has been given by either the Government or the Governor’s Office. Also unclear is the setting up a new Electoral Boundaries Commission with “revised Terms of Reference (TOR) to ensure equitable representation and comprehensive consultation.”

The three-member Electoral and Boundaries Commission(EBC) set up in January 2023 by former Governor Martyn Roper, had submitted its report last October following wide-ranging public consultation. It was chaired by Lisa R. Handley PhD with local attorneys Dr A. Steve McField and Adriannie Webb who had served on the previous 2015 Commission.

It’s known that there have been concerns in several circles including the Opposition over the lack of action by the UPM administration on the report and its recommendations.

The commission held nine public consultations and reported that “In almost all of the meetings, members of the audience expressed strong support for constituency boundaries that respected traditional districts.”

The audience also urged that North Side and East End in particular be maintained as separate constituencies. Adjustments to other districts and constituencies were also considered.

The 2023 report narrowed down to four options with the EBC recommending that the ‘six traditional districts’ remain unchanged but with adjusted constituency boundaries intended to reflect a more balanced population amongst them.

“Following the dictates of the Constitution, and in keeping with the views expressed by the public during the public hearings, the approach adopted by the EBC was to continue to respect the boundaries of the six traditional districts and to award to each traditional district at least one constituency.”

It concluded: “Therefore, while every effort was made to ensure equal populations of the constituencies within the six traditional districts, there is considerable population variation across these six traditional districts.”

In its report on the 2021 election, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association(CPA) had questioned the wide population disparities across the constituencies and recommended that those should be reviewed.