The Tribune

THE second “Open Parliament” meeting was not held yesterday due to a low turn-out.

Event organiser Halson Moultrie told reporters yesterday’s meeting was planned to allow young Bahamians to voice their concerns on the 2021 snap election, registration process and voter disenfranchisement among other things.

“The Open Parliament concept is a concept to bring about greater participation of the citizens of the country with parliament and the procedures and it’s all aimed at getting transparency, accountability and freedom and access to information,” Mr Moultrie said. Mr Moultrie served as Speaker of the House before Parliament was dissolved last month.

“So, this particular second Open Parliament is taking a different format than the first one. The first one turned into more of a political rally because we invited so many third parties and independents, so we did not invite the third parties and independents today.”

Despite the absence of independent parties, Mr Moultrie said he was still expecting a good turnout.

“So, we’re expecting today for a lot of people to come forward,” he said. “We’ve been getting a lot of concerns raised by young people about being disenfranchised as a consequence of the snap election and they feel like they have been disenfranchised because the prime minister kept giving the assurance that the election date is scheduled for May 22 (next year) and they feel like they acted to their detriment by not registering early and now they’re unable to vote so we expect to hear that from the young people.”

However, despite Mr Moultrie’s hopes, not many people showed up, a stark contrast from last month’s open Parliament proceedings.

There were one or two people spotted by The Tribune at the event, but they later left when proceedings didn’t begin.

Shortly after 11am, chairs were seen being taken away by police officers – signalling an end to the event before it had even started.