Activists keep up campaign efforts

| 16/12/2019 | 16 Comments
CPR activists (L-R) Melanie Carmichael, Johann Moxam, Shirley Roulstone, Jonathan Edie, Claudia Subiotto and Mario Rankin

(CNS) The members of the Cruise Port Referendum campaign are keeping up their efforts to persuade registered electors to vote ‘no’ whenever the referendum on the cruise port project is reset. The CPR will be holding its final rally for the year on Wednesday evening, when the largest ever grassroots movement is likely to be in a buoyant mood, given the unexpected success of its campaign so far.

The Christmas Rally will take place on Jayson Ave, Savannah, from 6pm and comes against a backdrop of growing international recognition of the campaign, helped largely by a BBC feature on the battle to preserve George Town Harbour’s unique marine environment and stall the current plans for two cruise berthing piers.

CPR has had a number of major successes, including securing well in excess of the required number of signatures to trigger the Cayman Islands’ first ever people-initiated referendum and getting the courts to stay the original date for the vote to allow for a judicial review over the government’s handling of the poll.

But despite these and many other important gains, the main goal to secure a ‘no’ vote from 50% plus one of the entire electorate remains a significant hurdle for the campaigners.

The case will go before the courts on 20 January, when campaigners will be seeking a ruling from the court on the question posed in the referendum, the need for the environmental, geo-technical, socioeconomic and business reports to be published before the vote, as well as addressing the issue of campaign finance.

How the court rules on the judicial review will have a profound impact on the outcome of the vote. Campaigners believe that people will vote ‘no’ when they are armed with all of the up-to-date and accurate information, when there is a fairer question based purely on the cruise project and not the port, and when the referendum follows a campaign based on an equal financial footing.


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Category: development, Local News, Politics

Comments (16)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    ‘ the campaign, helped largely by a BBC feature on the battle to preserve George Town Harbour’s unique marine environment and stall the current plans for two cruise berthing piers’. That explains CPR’s position quite clearly. All along they told us that the petition was about finding out if the votets were for or against the CBF. Now it is clear that they were really campaigning against the CBF.

  2. Liquid Smoke says:

    Watch your back CPR big money now playing nasty and is full of dutty tricks.Some folks need to stop going to those barbecues and be mindful of the company they keep. Focus on the younger generation leave those who sold us out to system we now have to battle.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    I think the percentage should be drawn from the amount of people that voted & those that didn’t vote should not be counted in.eg.if 1500 vote & 800 say no or yes; then whoever have the 800 wins whether it be yes or no; but to take the percentage from the population that sounds like some idiot’s sugession!!!

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  4. Anonymous says:

    The port will be built and naysayers will be eating sweet crow.

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  5. Kurt Christian says:

    Register To Vote

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  6. Cayman Mon says:

    Vote yes for the PORT.

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  7. Anonymous says:

    The CPR didn’t seek signatures on the basis of persons voting no. Three sides to any story. Two sides dishonest and only God knows the truth.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Don’t panic.
      The delays will lead into the next election campaign cycle, meaning that no politician will risk going anywhere near this project.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Lets get this straight you think this will be delayed for a year and a half?

        The hearing is in just under a month, the resolution will come within a matter of weeks after that and we will likely be heading to the polls in the late spring, or early summer

        Not to mention, if the government didn’t want the vote to be delayed, they had a simple solution before them, instead of messing with the process and hoping no one would challenge them, they should have held a free and fair election in the first place, an election that maintains our traditions in terms of regulations and laws.

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        • Anonymous says:

          You are forgetting that there is a 12 month period for final design reviews, cost adjustments and EIA yet to be conducted. Yes it will absorb another 18 months, and that is if everything goes just right without any further interruptions.

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    • Anonymous says:

      What??

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    • Anonymous says:

      3:36 you are wrong it was always intend to be, vote no.

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  8. Anonymous says:

    Can the courts decide if this 50% +1 is un-democratic??
    No where in the world is “a stay home vote equals a yes vote”allowed this is absolutely ridiculous it should be thrown out as not counting ballots and a real voter turnout decision?

    It is common sense that if 1000 people vote and 80% vote for something then is is passed it’s ridiculous to think otherwise

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    • The Constitutional Critic says:

      In short to answer your question probably not, yes It is undemocratic but that was not included by accident, it was done on purpose. Sadly there is little the courts could do in this regard, they can interpret the constitution but they cannot amend it or suspend it. There is only a very small argument that one could try to push although if I’m honest I am not sure how this would hold up in court, technically subsection 3 was written as a way to bind the government to DO something whereas this referendum was initiated potentially to STOP the government from doing something. There is an argument to be made that the government has interpreted Section 70 subsection 3 in a way it was not explicitly written, to benefit themselves because when they wrote the constitution I don’t think many of them foresaw section 70 being used to stop the government from doing something it wanted to do, they assumed it would be used to force the government to do something it didn’t want to do. The wording of Section 70 only mentions assenting to the question, not dissenting. Because of the wording of the question as it currently published, people against the project, would be voting against it not for it which is not explicitly mentioned in the constitution.

      But the argument that could be made would be a long-shot and, and it would only be won by the petitioners if the courts interpreted the Constitution as it is written.
      The reason why CPR is not challenging the binding threshold is because there is such a minute chance that it would be successful it probably is not worth the effort of fighting over it in court.

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      • Anonymous says:

        But could the judge in the judicial review not take statutory interpretation into consideration and come to the conclusion that “50+1” is not what the draftsperson intended when subsection 3 was written?

  9. Anonymous says:

    good Johann…you get in a save us bobo

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