In their pre­sen­ta­tions, the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors recog­nised that crime ini­tia­tives have failed, and said they are open to new strate­gies to stop the ter­ror against cit­i­zens. They vot­ed against a flawed Bill to op­er­a­tionalise the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO)—not the prin­ci­ple of ZOSO. Their de­ci­sion and sub­se­quent in­flam­ma­to­ry ac­cu­sa­tions have put them un­der threat, as a so­cial me­dia post is in­cit­ing harm against them.

Af­ter the fail­ure of the flawed Bill, the PM said, “The lo­cal drug mafia and gang mem­bers stand to ben­e­fit from the votes of the nine bootlick­ers.” She then re­port­ed al­le­ga­tions that dur­ing the de­bate, two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ap­proached a se­nior Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port and for se­cur­ing the re­main­ing votes need­ed for pas­sage. These re­quests were re­ject­ed.” The PM did not give the names of the se­nior Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and the two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Crises in democ­ra­cies emerge when lead­ers’ per­for­mance fails to meet cit­i­zens’ ex­pec­ta­tions, and this fail­ure ex­tends to their be­hav­iour dur­ing the process of pol­i­cy mak­ing and im­ple­men­ta­tion. In times past, there were no com­mu­ni­ca­tion in­stru­ments as ubiq­ui­tous as the Web to em­pow­er peo­ple with in­stant in­for­ma­tion, so they were less aware of the ma­noeu­vrings of pow­er, po­lit­i­cal stealth, and how eas­i­ly democ­ra­cy can slip off the cliff in­to the swamp of au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism.

The Con­sti­tu­tion en­trusts Par­lia­ment with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to make laws, not mere­ly to en­dorse leg­is­la­tion pre­sent­ed by the Gov­ern­ment. A gov­ern­ment that is se­ri­ous about law­mak­ing should not, from the out­set, de­clare that it will ac­cept no amend­ments. In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are not ap­point­ed to rub­ber-stamp Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als; they are re­quired to scru­ti­nise, test, and, where nec­es­sary, seek to im­prove leg­is­la­tion in the pub­lic in­ter­est. To do oth­er­wise would be a fail­ure of their con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty.

Yet, for dis­charg­ing that role in re­la­tion to the ZOSO’s Bill, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors were vil­i­fied by the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment. Eight of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vot­ed against the Bill on­ly af­ter propos­ing amend­ments which the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al him­self de­scribed as de­serv­ing of care­ful and thought­ful con­sid­er­a­tion. De­spite ac­knowl­edg­ing that sev­er­al amend­ments were sub­stan­tial and re­quired care­ful thought, the Sen­ate was in­formed that the Gov­ern­ment would not ac­cept any amend­ments. The Gov­ern­ment vot­ed against all pro­posed amend­ments. The Bill failed.

The Ja­maican leg­is­la­tion was of­ten ref­er­enced, but there are key dif­fer­ences with the Trinida­di­an ap­proach. In Ja­maica, po­lice re­form, hu­man rights train­ing for po­lice and sol­diers, and manda­to­ry par­lia­men­tary re­port­ing were cen­tral to the law’s suc­cess. The Ja­maican law al­so in­clud­ed a sun­set clause, and the Prime Min­is­ter did not have the uni­lat­er­al pow­er to des­ig­nate a zone.

There is a pat­tern of gov­ern­ment be­hav­iour that is deeply con­cern­ing. All pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ments have had their day with un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour in one con­text or an­oth­er. As cit­i­zens, we did our du­ty. We went to the polls and kicked them out. We have hired this one on the ex­pec­ta­tion that there will be a pos­i­tive change.

Let’s ex­am­ine the back­ground en­vi­ron­ment lead­ing up to this mo­ment. A back­ground char­ac­terised by in­sults, bul­ly­ing, in­tim­i­da­tion, un­truths and vi­o­lent lan­guage.

Lead­ing up to the Sen­ate de­bate. The PM told the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors their be­hav­iour was hyp­o­crit­i­cal and pi­ous; they didn’t have the courage to face the elec­torate; they en­gage in self-pro­mo­tion and self-con­grat­u­la­tion; and they use their po­si­tion as a step­ping stone for per­son­al busi­ness. She said their spe­cial abil­i­ty is bootlick­ing and self-pro­mo­tion. They’re eat-ah-food, bootlick­ers and brown nosers. She called the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, a “low-lev­el PNM func­tionary.”

In June 2025, the UNC spokesper­son, Dr Kirk Meighoo ac­cused In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors of not be­ing tru­ly in­de­pen­dent and chal­lenged them not to block the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Bill amend­ments by ab­stain­ing or vot­ing against it … caus­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, Wade Mark to is­sue a re­buke: “Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege pro­vides es­sen­tial pro­tec­tion from ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence of any kind,” Mark stat­ed. “It guar­an­tees Mem­bers of this Par­lia­ment the free­dom to speak, de­lib­er­ate, and vote with­out fear or co­er­cion… This free­dom is not a mere cour­tesy—it is a fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al right, sacro­sanct and be­yond chal­lenge or com­pro­mise.”

Around the same time in June 2025, the PM said the Law As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers are PNM eat-ah-food lawyers who had in­fil­trat­ed the LATT ex­ec­u­tive. She called them po­lit­i­cal hyp­ocrites, de­scrib­ing the body as a “de­filed and dis­cred­it­ed or­gan­i­sa­tion” and a “mouth­piece for lazy, dunce, hun­gry-mouth PNM se­nior coun­sel who loot the trea­sury”. She had “no re­gard for the eat-ah-food filth in the hi­er­ar­chy of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion.”

ZOSO – the Gov­ern­ment’s ag­gres­sive pat­tern of be­hav­iour

The ag­gres­sive pat­tern start­ed on the elec­tion plat­form. Said the Prime Min­is­ter, “… when the crim­i­nals in­vade your home, draw your li­censed firearm and light them up! Emp­ty the whole clip! Re­load! Fight fire with fire!” “I’ll buss your head,” she said, re­fer­ring to min­is­ters and MPs if they en­gaged in ques­tion­able al­liances. “Kill them vi­o­lent­ly,” re­fer­ring to al­leged drug traf­fick­ers. Mean­while, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty wants a law to re­strict free speech, tar­get­ing cit­i­zens who crit­i­cised po­lice ac­tions af­ter a video show­ing the con­tro­ver­sial killing of Joshua Sama­roo. This fol­lowed an ear­li­er at­tempt to have the US re­voke visas of cit­i­zens based on their so­cial me­dia ac­tiv­i­ty.

The PM ac­cused the com­mer­cial banks and Ex­im­Bank of car­tel-like prac­tices, opaque deals ben­e­fit­ing elites, op­er­at­ing on­ly for the wealthy few, while con­demn­ing the 1% elite. She ac­cused the En­er­gy Cham­ber of serv­ing nar­row, for­eign and se­lect lo­cal in­ter­ests, de­scrib­ing it as self-serv­ing and detri­men­tal to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The coun­try was la­belled a “law­less dump” af­ter pub­lic up­roar over harsh fines that came like a thief dur­ing Christ­mas week, de­spite a promise not to in­crease them. The ra­tio­nale giv­en was that the Gov­ern­ment didn’t know the ex­tent of mo­tor ve­hi­cle and road law­less­ness!

There hasn’t been a shred of ev­i­dence back­ing any of the ac­cu­sa­tions, in ad­di­tion to bla­tant mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions lead­ing up to the at­tack on Venezuela. The mil­i­tary radar had noth­ing to do with drug in­ter­dic­tion. We heard that the US mil­i­tary had left af­ter train­ing our sol­diers. Then it was ex­plained that the per­son­nel who’d left were from the Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit. Then we heard that US sol­diers were in To­ba­go con­struct­ing an ac­cess road, and lat­er heard they were there mon­i­tor­ing the radar. We were told it de­tect­ed drugs in the Ca­roni Swamp. It did not.

Giv­en the pat­tern of the Gov­ern­ment’s be­hav­iour, any rea­son­able per­son should ques­tion the cred­i­bil­i­ty of crim­i­nal ac­cu­sa­tions against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors. The mat­ter can­not be ig­nored. It is per­verse to ac­cuse sen­a­tors of crim­i­nal con­duct with­out ev­i­dence, plac­ing all nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors in the un­fair and un­pleas­ant po­si­tion of hav­ing to prove their in­no­cence when the bur­den of proof is on who­ev­er the ac­cuser is. Reck­less com­men­tary and ac­cu­sa­tions could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for in­no­cent peo­ple, in­clud­ing their lives.