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June 05 - Parliamentary and Democratic Reform Report Tabled in Parliament

parliamentYesterday morning the Commission for Parliamentary and Democratic Reform’s report was tabled in Parliament. A number of recommendations were laid out before MPs with both the Governing and Opposition parties giving their views on each matter. Leader of the Opposition, Daniel Feetham insisted that his party had always been in favour of the recommendation to expand the seats available in Parliament, he suggested that the current 17 seats be expanded to 25, allowing for a section of back benchers who would focus primarily on constituency work.

Feetham also suggested that political parties standing for Election should expand their number of candidates from 10 to 15, as people may be more inclined to break their block vote. Both the Government and Opposition agreed that looking into advanced vote count technology should be explored.

Regarding the Commissions recommendation for the registration of political parties, the Chief Minister insisted that a register would be unnecessary and parties should be able to congregate without registering. At this point, Mr. Picardo mentioned that many years ago, himself, Damon Bossino and Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Garcia used to sit around a table discussing politics, in what they believed was their own political party.

The Chief Minister also disagreed with the suggestion to form a Statutory Electoral Commission. He noted that this would be unnecessary as there is no doubting the way elections have been conducted in Gibraltar.

Both sides of the house agreed that Chief Ministers should only serve two terms in office.