Yvonne?Ba­boolal

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) has tak­en a de­ci­sion that vot­ing on the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2014 should be de­ferred for at least one month to al­low for greater analy­sis of the leg­is­la­tion.The COP's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive ar­rived at the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day af­ter ex­ten­sive de­lib­er­a­tions with mem­bers of its na­tion­al coun­cil at the par­ty's Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre in Char­lieville.

"Maybe a month would do. It's a rea­son­able time frame, I think," COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, said.

He said tak­ing the bill be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of Par­lia­ment was one op­tion put for­ward.

The meet­ing be­gan about 10.30 am and con­clud­ed close to 4 pm and was at­tend­ed by par­ty founder Win­ston Dook­er­an, COP MPs and mem­bers.Ra­mad­har, ad­dress­ing the me­dia af­ter, said "We be­lieve no leg­is­la­tion should be brought with­out the pop­u­la­tion un­der­stand­ing it."

Asked how the COP will even­tu­al­ly vote on the bill, he replied, "The na­tion­al coun­cil left it up to us to vote.

"What is best for T&T is best for the COP."

In­di­cat­ing in which di­rec­tion the par­ty may be vot­ing, Ra­mad­har said con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form was some­thing the COP had want­ed.

Ra­mad­har is chair­man of the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form Com­mis­sion, which held con­sul­ta­tions na­tion­wide on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

"The runoff bal­lot will en­rich par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cy. There will be two lev­els of vot­ing now."

He said, on the con­trary, runoff elec­tions will not kill off third par­ties. It was a ques­tion of whether the West­min­ster po­lit­i­cal sys­tem of first-past-the-post and the win­ner takes all should be left as it is, or be im­proved.

Asked if he felt Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will heed the COP's re­quest, Ra­mad­har said, "It's re­al­ly a mat­ter for the Prime Min­is­ter. But when it comes to giv­ing an ear to mat­ters of na­tion­al im­por­tance, we've been well re­spect­ed."

Dook­er­an, who left the meet­ing be­fore it end­ed, spoke briefly with the me­dia, de­fer­ring ques­tions to the po­lit­i­cal leader.He said the con­sen­sus among na­tion­al coun­cil mem­bers was that de­bate on the bill can be start­ed but should not be con­clud­ed just yet.

Ru­fus Fos­ter, who had con­test­ed the lead­er­ship post in the COP's re­cent elec­tions, said mem­bers to­tal­ly re­ject­ed the runoff bal­lot."They felt it should be shelved un­til prop­er­ly analysed."

Fos­ter said Ra­mad­har, how­ev­er, felt the COP should not waive its right to vote on the bill.While he spoke to the me­dia, oth­er COP mem­bers be­came ag­i­tat­ed and said he was giv­ing false in­for­ma­tion.An uniden­ti­fied man in the COP of­fice shout­ed, "Prakash is a UNC, Bhoe is a UNC, the whole ex­ec­u­tive gone UNC!"

Ra­mad­har said the is­sue of runoff elec­tions was dis­cussed at the na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions but mem­bers of the pub­lic did not take con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form se­ri­ous­ly.

Re­spond­ing to for­mer prime min­is­ter and UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day who said runoff elec­tions will take the coun­try back to trib­al vot­ing, he said, "The is­sue of racial vot­ing is sub­sid­ing."

He dis­missed charges the bill will in­cite civ­il un­rest."On what ba­sis? The coun­try has shown it­self com­mit­ted to law and or­der."

Sus­pend­ed COP mem­bers Satu Ram­cha­ran and Rudolph Hanamji kept up a protest demon­stra­tion out­side the of­fice for the du­ra­tion of the meet­ing. They were joined for a short while by Kirk Wait­he of Fix­in T&T, who said the protest would con­tin­ue lat­er in the yes­ter­day evening and to­day out­side Par­lia­ment.

'Ram­lo­gan wrong'

Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Com­mis­sion mem­ber, Dr Mer­le Hodge has said the runoff bal­lot was not part of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship man­i­festo, the con­sul­ta­tions, or the com­mis­sion's fi­nal re­port.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan re­spond­ed to her dis­clo­sure by say­ing the com­mis­sion­ers were hand­some­ly paid.Ra­mad­har, asked to re­spond to this, said, the AG's state­ment was dis­taste­ful and that Hodge is a well-re­spect­ed mem­ber of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty who is en­ti­tled to her view.

COP chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she al­so con­demned the AG's "at­tack" on Hodge.