The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

DISTRUST in the government was a big factor in the failure of Tuesday’s referendum, Constitutional Commission Chairman Sean McWeeney said yesterday.

Both Prime Minister Perry Christie and National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage shied away yesterday from acknowledging the role dissatisfaction in the government may have contributed to the referendum’s outcome. However, Mr McWeeney, one of Mr Christie’s advisors, was not evasive about this element.

“No question about it,” Mr McWeeney told The Tribune when asked about the matter outside the House of Assembly yesterday.

“There’s no question that the experience of the gaming referendum and the fallout from that and the feeling that the government was perhaps not serious about honouring the expressed issues of the people, that clearly was a major factor. I think there was also some payback for 2002 involved. There was a sense that the government when it was in opposition had reneged on its promise and commitment in 2002 and I think a lot of FNMs made no secret that this was the time to repay the favours so to speak, but I think clearly the gaming referendum was a much more powerful force at work in this referendum.”

Mr McWeeney and members of the Constitutional Commission had spent much of the last year traversing the country, educating people about the Constitutional Amendment Bills and trying to dismiss concerns that the bills reflected an ulterior agenda.

A reflective Mr McWeeney said the significant failure of the referendum has major implications for the government’s desire for constitutional reform in other areas not on Tuesday’s ballot, adding that it will be a long time until another vote on gender equality is brought.

“It will be a long time before something like this is brought back to the people,” he said.

The Constitutional Commission released a report in 2013 recommending that referendums be held to address issues relating not only to citizenship, but also to matters relating to the judiciary, the Senate, the Parliamentary Commission, Cabinet, the powers of the prime minister and the environment.

Tuesday’s vote, Mr McWeeney said, has impacted these plans.

“It does have implications for the other things in the queue because this was sort of a very basic, foundational first round for what was intended to be an extensive programme of constitutional referendums,” he said.

“If we can’t get past this first round for something as simple as men and women being equal, and frankly it really was as simple as that, then I think you need to have a serious rethink about this whole issue of constitutional reform.”

Mr McWeeney said homophobia played a role in the referendum’s failure, along with xenophobia and misogyny.

“We were aware that homophobia was a factor,” he said. “And it wasn’t just the homophobia, it was the xenophobia, fear of foreigners that became a part of bill number two. There was the misogyny, the belief that men are superior to women which got unfortunately some validation from some unexpected sources which seemed to legitimatise those kinds of feelings and thought. It was a cocktail of some toxic elements and when you put it all together it really indicated the death of the bills.”

He said eliminating the fourth bill would not have made the referendum a success.

“I thinks (Tuesday’s) results showed that (it wouldn’t),” he said.

“The four bills were soundly rejected across the board from one end of the country to the next so bill number four could not by any rational means be brought to bear on bills one, two and three. There was some currents here that went well beyond the issues that developed in relation to bill number four.”

Mr McWeeney said he expects no practical, negative consequence to affect The Bahamas over the ‘no’ vote outcome.

“This will probably cause us to be looked at less favourably by the UN and others because we are clearly lagging behind,” he said. “I think this puts us in the company of just about 20 other countries that have accepted these things as cultural norms. It does cause the ‘enlightened world’ to look at us with a jaundiced eye but I don’t think there will be any practical downside to anything. I think that’s why we were careful not to play that aspect of it up because we know Bahamians resent being told by outside forces what they should and shouldn’t do. It’s a reality that we are in breach and will continue to be in breach of some of the conventions that we signed on to.”