NewsTHE BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY (BLP) will not be supporting the Constituency Councils Bill due to be debated in Parliament on Tuesday.
The party's deputy leader Dale Marshall made it clear yesterday during a Press conference at the Opposition Leader's Office in Parliament Buildings that they could not support the bill in its present form.
He charged they were misled by the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) about the manner in which the councils would be established.
"Early in the discussion [leader Mia Mottley] and myself sought and obtained assurances from the minister responsible, Chris Sinckler, that the constituency councils would be constituted on the basis of the election of the individual to serve on those councils.
"We were hopeful that he would have stuck with that particular commitment but now that we have seen the bill, it is clear that both he and Democratic labour Party Government have resiled from that position."
Marshall explained that Barbadians would not have the opportunity to vote for who represented them on the councils but those persons would be selected out of the nominations by the minister.
He charged that this was a threat to democracy.
He added that Government was seeking to establish a framework which would interpose itself between central government and the constituents in such a way as "almost to exclude any meaningful participation by the member of Parliament", whom he pointed out would only sit on the council ex-officio.
"We feel that flies in the face of what all parliamentarians represented to the people of this country: that they would be representing their interest at all levels."
Marshall said the establishment of the councils in that manner "would only serve to empower the Democratic Labour Party and help to support their particular members of Parliament.
"That is not about strengthening democracy, that is about pork barrel politics and the BLP stands firm that we would not be supporting this particular bill." (MB
Reproduced for the Weekend Nation of February 6, 2009.
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Calendar of EventsThis DLP government promised change but has now resorted to its comfort zone of trademark “old ways; conventional politics.” The Democratic Labour Party is again doing all of those things, which caused Barbadians to loose confidence in it, in the past.
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