Marshall Is seats to be hotly contested

Transcript

GIFF JOHNSON: A lot of the sitting members of parliament, there are 33 total, many of them are candidates for election to the Con-Con. Then there's a separate set of seats that are reserved out of the 45, 12 seats are reserved for traditional leaders, chiefs so those will be part of the election as well as the members of the public who have registered.

JO O'BRIEN: So how significant will the choice of candidates be to the outcome of the convention?

GJ: The way the constitutional convention setup works in Marshall Islands is that the convention can not come up with its own amendments. The amendments have to have been adopted previously by the parliament and then forwarded to the constitutional convention for review and action. So there are a number of amendments that have been adopted by the parliament over the past year or so in anticipation of a Con-Con coming up. I would say that the most discussed amendment proposed is the direct election of the president which would change the style of government in the Marshall Islands if it were ultimately approved both in the Con-Con and by public vote.

JO: Why has that amendment been put forward. Is there a feeling that the parliamentary style of government isn't working?

GJ: The feeling that has come out from, particularly from people in the public, I think has centred on the number of motions of no confidence that have surfaced in recent years and the instability that this causes and secondly a sense that the president because they are dependent on maintaining a majority within the parliament lacks power to enforce accountability in their cabinet and among their party and that direct election of the president would give the president more of a mandate.

JO: Can we say yet if that's likely to be approved, this measure to bring in a presidential style system?

GJ: It's very hard to say what will actually come out of the upcoming constitutional convention but the challenge is that there have been two previous constitutional conventions in the 37 years of constitutional government here and none of amendments that were adopted in previous Con-Cons were adopted or approved by voters.