Dr. Douglas said, in addition to the clear thinking people who have recognized the urgent need to correct the present imbalance, organisations including CARICOM and the Organisation Of American States have spoken to the matter.
“And no clear thinking person would say that 2,000+ people in one constituency, and 7,000+ in another constituency, would carry the same political weight,” he said.
“CARICOM has spoken out on this and the Organization of American States has spoken out. Opposition politicians always want CARICOM and the OAS to speak out. Well, they have spoken out, and they have said that with reference to elections, St. Kitts-Nevis needs to equalize our constituencies and adjust our boundaries. Most importantly, listeners, our Constitution says that this is what we have to do. These haphazard constituency sizes are not good for our democracy,” he added.
The Prime Minister added that the matter of equalizing the constituencies is far too serious a matter to play politics with.
“And this is too important a matter to for us to play with any more: the IMF said that St. Kitts-Nevis was performing superbly, anti-Government politicians said the IMF does not understand economics. The Government slashed the country’s debt in half, they said the debt had not gone down. The Constitution says equalize the constituency sizes, they say that equalizing the constituencies would be a bad thing,” he said.
“This is a New Year, listeners. Let us hope, therefore, that anti-Government politicians will decide, at least where constituency sizes are concerned to – for once – do what would be in the best interests of us all,” he added.