Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

In an­tic­i­pa­tion of a show­down both in­side and out­side of Par­lia­ment, po­lice have boost­ed land, sea and air pa­trols as gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion forces are ex­pect­ed to gath­er at the Wa­ter­front for the de­bate on the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2014 this morn­ing.Sources said sup­port­ers from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) strong­holds are be­ing mo­bilised to gath­er out­side Par­lia­ment to show sup­port for the bill.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment forces as well as so­cial groups such as Fix­in T&T and Ad­vo­cates for Change, oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP), are al­so plan­ning to have an all night vig­il out­side par­lia­ment build­ing while the de­bate is go­ing on.

Off-du­ty law en­force­ment of­fi­cers from Cen­tral Po­lice, Traf­fic Branch, Besson Street and Port-of-Spain CID have been called out to du­ty in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the protests, sources said. In ad­di­tion to the Court and Process Branch po­lice of­fi­cers who are as­signed to Par­lia­men­tary du­ties, a team of Spe­cial Branch of­fi­cers have al­so been as­signed to to­day's hear­ing.

"We ex­pect to have plain clothes of­fi­cers min­gling with the crowds and we are al­so mon­i­tor­ing mo­bil­i­sa­tion from op­po­si­tion and gov­ern­ment con­stituen­cies," a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer said on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, as he was not au­tho­rised to speak on to­day's se­cu­ri­ty plans.An­oth­er so­cial group Democ­ra­cy Watch, an or­gan­i­sa­tion aligned to for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj as well was al­so last night dis­cussing their in­ten­tions to join the vig­il.

In de­fend­ing his de­ci­sion to protest out­side par­lia­ment, Fix­in T&T's leader Kirk Wait­he said the peo­ple of T&T must force the post­pone­ment of the de­bate."This is the sin­gu­lar most dan­ger­ous at­tack on the peo­ple and con­sti­tu­tion in the his­to­ry of T&T. This is worse than all the oth­er scan­dals of this gov­ern­ment and pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ments com­bined be­cause if this leg­is­la­tion is passed, an in­cum­bent gov­ern­ment that wins one seat in the gen­er­al elec­tions can re­tain pow­er for an in­def­i­nite pe­ri­od of time," Wait­he said.

Say­ing "this is the be­gin­ning of the end of democ­ra­cy if it is al­lowed to be de­bat­ed," Wait­he called on the cit­i­zen­ry to join them in protest."Be pre­pared to stay all night. We must unite to stop this," Wait­he said.Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so called on cit­i­zens to stand up against the at­tack on democ­ra­cy.

"I want to in­vite every cit­i­zen to rise up and join us with vig­i­lance and con­vic­tion in pro­tect­ing our democ­ra­cy. I in­vite every cit­i­zen, every group, every as­so­ci­a­tion, re­gard­less of your age, your re­li­gion, gen­der, po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, so­cial stand­ing or ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion to join with us in stop­ping this open at­tack on our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and free­doms," Row­ley said in a tele­vised ad­dress to the na­tion on Fri­day.

Say­ing the runoff bal­lot will cause con­fu­sion, Row­ley ac­cused gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to pass laws that would en­able them to stay in of­fice long af­ter the par­ty has been de­feat­ed."Look at the gov­ern­ment's track record of abuse, de­cep­tion and in­sin­cer­i­ty. Gov­ern­ment is un­der-es­ti­mat­ing the in­tel­li­gence of this coun­try," Row­ley charged.The PNM has sched­uled a pub­lic meet­ing at Bournes Road, St James on Tues­day night to fur­ther dis­cuss the is­sue.

Ab­du­lah com­ments

Mean­while, MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah said the peo­ple must take pow­er in­to their hands. He said the gov­ern­ment could not pass the bill if the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) par­lia­men­tar­i­ans with­held their sup­port.Ab­du­lah said the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ma­haraj as well as for­mer Oropouche West MP Mick­ela Pan­day will be speak­ing at a pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion meet­ing on Wednes­day night in San Fer­nan­do.

How­ev­er, leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said Row­ley was in­cit­ing the pop­u­la­tion to protest. Ac­cus­ing Row­ley of be­ing a "mer­chant of fear" Mooni­lal said the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form laws will bol­ster par­tic­i­pa­to­ry gov­er­nance. He said the cur­rent West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­ern­ment did not cater for third par­ties but un­der the new re­form, third par­ties will get a sec­ond chance of vic­to­ry un­der the runoff bal­lot.

Ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh al­so de­nied that the re­form ini­tia­tives were an at­tack on democ­ra­cy."Let the de­bate go on and let the pop­u­la­tion be bet­ter in­formed," Gopeesingh said. He al­so ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of in­cit­ing po­lit­i­cal vi­o­lence in T&T.

Since Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­tro­duced the bill in Par­lia­ment on Au­gust 4, which pro­pos­es fixed terms for the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter, right of re­call and a runoff vote to elim­i­nate mi­nor­i­ty MPs, there has been ob­jec­tion from a wide cross-sec­tion of so­ci­ety against the con­tro­ver­sial runoff pro­vi­sion.De­bate is ex­pect­ed to be­gin to­day from 10.30 am.