With only about 10 months to go before the next general election must be called, less than half the expected voters have registered and the parliamentary commissioner is expressing grave concern.
Commissioner Errol Bethel told the Journal that 67,362 people out of an anticipated 170,000 had registered up to Wednesday, which he has chalked up to a lack of enthusiasm.
Of that number, almost two thirds is on New Providence. About 45,000 New Providence residents have registered, 11,800 Grand Bahamians and 10,300 Bahamians from all the other Family Islands together.
Prime Minister Perry Christie announced on Wednesday morning that he planned “immediately” to institute proceedings that will result in the formation of the Boundaries Commission.
Once the commission is constituted, it will review existing constituencies to determine whether they should remain unchanged or be altered. There are 40 constituencies in The Bahamas at present.
The formation of the Boundaries Commission is a strong signal that elections are approaching: after the commission reports, the prime minister will “ring the bell” by announcing the date of the next general elections.
Mr. Bethel is concerned that Bahamians are possibly waiting for the commission to report before getting out to register.
“One thing we cannot do is wait for the bell to ring because once the bell does ring that means the election is imminent,” he said.
“That may be a bit late because you could have the Boundaries Commission reporting and then you could have elections a couple of months after that.”
Mr. Bethel pointed out that the votersﾒ register actually closes a month before the general elections, so people in fact only have nine months within which to get registered for the 2007 elections.
“This is a process that is more urgent than people may think. Election is going to be within 10 months, so I think people need to get serious about this exercise and start getting registered as soon as possible,” Mr. Bethel said.
“At this rate what is going to happen is that we are going to have some extremely long lines near the end, and I would very much like to avoid that. People can now come and register without towing too many long lines.”
By: Quincy Parker, The Bahama Journal
