Apr 20
Responding to Tennyson Joseph’s paper and comments, this contributor argues that a Caribbean Integration Party should take the form of a social movement. He goes on to outline a radically different structure for a new West Indian federation to make it both representative and effective.
What are your thoughts on the points I made? The outline isn’t radically different from proposals made back in the 1950s except in the requirement to keep the capital outside of the larger territories (larger in area and population); and even then Antigua had been mentioned as a preferred location for the Federal capital by Jamaicans, The double majority system idea came from Australia’s constitution and from one of the EU’s voting procedures (with the EU in particular presenting a parallel of having very populous states such as Germany in a quasi-federal structure with states that have tiny populations such as Luxembourg or Malta). Indeed Germany has a population 196 times as large as Malta’s. Yes Jamaica has a population over 480 times the size of Montserrat, but if Germany and Malta can coexist in a quasi-federal structure and Uttar Pradesh can coexist with Sikkim in the federal structure of India despite having over 300 times the population of Sikkim then there is no reason the same cannot apply in the West Indies. Actually in India the disparity is worse since even union territories are represented in the lower house (though with a maximum number of representatives set by the constitution) and Uttar Pradesh and the Laccadives are both represented in parliament while Uttar Pradesh has a population over 3,000 times the size of the Laccadives!
The systematic changing of constituencies though is entirely my idea and also that of requiring candidates to actually live in the constituencies though I have seen the idea proposed elsewhere as well.
Jon