Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

If the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2014 goes be­fore a joint se­lect com­mit­tee (JSC) of Par­lia­ment the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will not take any part in the process, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says.He made the com­ment as he ad­dressed hun­dreds of sup­port­ers at a pub­lic meet­ing at Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do, on Mon­day night.Say­ing "there is no right way to do wrong," Row­ley al­so called on Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith to stop cam­paign­ing for the Gov­ern­ment.

"You can­not stay in the chair and cam­paign for the Gov­ern­ment on a mat­ter in which the pub­lic is ris­ing up against it. The chair is sup­posed to be im­par­tial. The chair does not take part in the vot­ing process," Row­ley said to thun­der­ous ap­plause.Row­ley urged the pub­lic to stand up against the bill and to be aware of a sin­is­ter plot by Gov­ern­ment strate­gists to steal the 2015 elec­tion.He said now that the mat­ter was be­fore the Sen­ate, it was im­por­tant for cit­i­zens to look past their dif­fer­ences.

"I want to tell the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, who is ad­vo­cat­ing that this mat­ter go be­fore a JSC, that this mat­ter–which was brought to Par­lia­ment so in­de­cent­ly, so sur­rep­ti­tious­ly, and which has the po­ten­tial to cre­ate po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty in this coun­try–will find no favour with the PNM. It has no place in the Par­lia­ment," Row­ley said."The bill must be with­drawn from the Par­lia­ment and put be­fore the pub­lic for ad­ju­di­ca­tion."

The bill, which is due to be de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate on Au­gust 26, has sparked pub­lic out­cry. Sev­er­al so­cial groups in­clud­ing Work­ing­Women, Democ­ra­cy Watch and Fix­in T&T, have been protest­ing out­side Par­lia­ment.The runoff poll has sparked most crit­i­cism, with some sec­tors of the pub­lic say­ing it was not part of the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form fo­rums across the coun­try and the bill should be halt­ed to al­low for more talks on the is­sue. But the Gov­ern­ment is in­sist­ing it will go ahead with it.

No sup­port for PR ei­ther

Row­ley al­so said the PNM want­ed to lim­it the num­ber of Sen­a­tors who can serve in the Cab­i­net, and would not sup­port pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.He al­so chal­lenged At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to throw his hat in­to the elec­tion ring."One per­son who should be re­called from pub­lic of­fice is Anand Ram­lo­gan, and there is no pro­vi­sion in the law to re­call him," he said.

"So it is okay for him and the likes of him to wield pow­er in this coun­try, to spend your mon­ey and talk down to you. He has a prob­lem with elect­ed mem­bers serv­ing their term."I want to tell Ram­lo­gan that if you want to serve in gov­ern­ment or Cab­i­net, put your­self out and get elect­ed by the peo­ple, and on that ba­sis you can con­trol the coun­try's af­fairs."

De­scrib­ing Ram­lo­gan as "ob­nox­ious and crass," Row­ley said it was ev­i­dent that Gov­ern­ment was head­ing down a road of po­lit­i­cal, eth­nic and so­cial in­sta­bil­i­ty if it tam­pered with the Con­sti­tu­tion. He said it was not true that the PNM was caught nap­ping when Gov­ern­ment brought the bill, as months be­fore it was laid in Par­lia­ment the PNM had al­ready set up two com­mit­tees to look at con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.