Re-Registration Coming; Re-Districting to Create 10 New Constituencies

Kareem Musa

There has long been a call for re-registration of the electoral roll and for re-districting of the electoral boundaries. The former has only taken place in 1996 and 1997 after first being introduced while the last took place between the 2003 and 2008 general elections. Reports are that as many as ten new constituencies will be created, raising the number from thirty-one to forty-one. Now the job has been handed to former Minister Douglas Singh as chair of the Election and Boundaries Commission. His appointment was discussed in the Senate last week and today, Kareem Musa raised it.

Kareem Musa, Area Rep., Caribbean Shores

“Will the Right Honorable Prime Minister say whether there will be a re-registration exercise by the first of July, 2017 as mandated by section nine of the Representation of the People Act?”

Dean Barrow

Prime Minister Dean Barrow

“So you’re not really a fool; because obviously you know what is a proper question. So the ones before, you deliberately tried to pull a fast one in such a transparent obvious. So absolutely hopeless. Anyways, yes the intension absolution is to conduct the re-registration exercise by—hold on—they are saying the first of July 2017. No sir, no sir. The municipal elections are to take place as I recollect it in 2018; I don’t see doing a re-registration before the municipal elections. After the municipal elections…man if you don’t. So in my view, the re-registration exercise must take place before the next general elections, but should take place after the next municipal elections. Those…you are a baby in so many ways—baby brains, but also a baby in the woods, politically—so you obviously have no notion of what re-registration involves. If we do re-registration in 2017, the electors that you will have available in terms of those that would have been registered. Mister Speaker can we have a point of order?”