The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE Constituencies Commission has missed its self-imposed deadline to submit recommendations for boundary changes, according to Official Opposition member K Peter Turnquest, who yesterday projected that the report will not be tabled until next year.

In an interview with The Tribune, the East Grand Bahama MP speculated whether the deadline had been missed because the governing side was still mulling over additional constituencies in a bid to bolster support in tough areas.

He maintained that there was not enough information to make a scientific decision on any boundary changes due to low voter registration.

The commission was scheduled to meet last week to reveal the proposed changes but the meeting was cancelled, he said.

“I don’t know why the meetings were cancelled, I imagine that we will meet on (December 7) when the House reconvenes and hopefully at that time they will present a proposal with respect to any realignment,” Mr Turnquest said.

“Once that is done, I presume the committee would have time to consider the changes and make recommendations.

Mr Turnquest said: “That process is likely to take at least two to three weeks, which takes us into the Christmas time period which means, being practical, that we will not have a position before the end of the year.

“That is very unfortunate,” he said, “we’ve been here before. It does not give potential candidates as much of an opportunity to be presented to their communities as we all would like, and as the voters deserve.”

Constituencies Commission Chair and House Speaker Dr Kendal Major confirmed to The Tribune earlier this month that the Progressive Liberal Party government has made clear its intention to create additional seats. Dr Major explained that the commission was using data from the 2010 census that had been extrapolated in a 2016 report prepared by the Department of Statistics.

The report, prepared by the Census Section, projected a population increase of 6.9 per cent on New Providence, and delineated the figures by 2012 electoral boundaries.

Centreville and Bain and Grants Town are projected to have the largest constituencies, and of those figures, there were 12,849 and 12,337 persons aged 18 and older respectively.

Constituencies projected to have the smallest population sizes are Yamacraw (8,578) and Pinewood (9,852), the only two areas with figures under 10,000.

Based on these figures, Millennials - persons between the ages of 18 and 35 - represent 28 per cent (74,970) of the total population.

While Baby Boomers, those between the ages of 55 and 70, represent 11 per cent (29,410) of the total population.

More than 57,000 people have registered so far to vote in next year’s election, considerably lower compared to this period prior to the 2012 general election.

The 2012 voter registry consisted of 172,000 voters, 134,000 of whom had registered by this point in 2011.

“I don’t think we have enough information at this point,” Mr Turnquest said, “voter registration is very low, we have no reason to believe there has been that much of a shift. Maybe in Grand Bahama or Bimini there has been some shift but generally speaking we don’t have enough information to make a scientific decision on any boundaries.

“We have some population projected, which gives some basis for analysis, but we haven’t reached that point yet where we can justify any changes.”

When pressed for comment on the stalled pace, he said: “I can’t see any other reason, I don’t know if from their perspective there are strategic reasons to be as late as possible to catch the Opposition unawares and unprepared.

“But we are ready, one of the duties that we’re faced with today is we have much more qualified candidates than there are seats left to be filled.”