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Monday, July 14, 2025

More reform to come, says PM

by

20140829

Af­ter three days of in­tense de­bate in­side and out­side of Par­lia­ment, the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill was sent to the com­mit­tee stage to al­low sen­a­tors to make amend­ments but Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says there will be more changes to come to the elec­toral process.Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who had been deeply in­volved in the draft­ing of the bill, said an­oth­er bill for fixed elec­tion dates was be­ing con­sid­ered by Cab­i­net.

She al­so said the Gov­ern­ment was still look­ing at pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.In an hour-long wrap-up of the bill, which pro­pos­es fixed elec­tion dates, term lim­its for prime min­is­ters, the right to re­call non-per­form­ing MPs and a runoff bal­lot sys­tem, Per­sad-Bisses­sar praised In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for their in­put.She al­so con­demned the Op­po­si­tion's crit­i­cisms, say­ing they failed to make any sug­ges­tions and had tak­en a de­ci­sion to vote against even be­fore the bill was read.

How­ev­er, she as­sured there was no need to fear the bill as it was the peo­ple who would de­cide who gov­erned the coun­try.She said: "I thank you mem­bers of the In­de­pen­dent bench be­cause whilst it is that the Op­po­si­tion did not come out with a sin­gle idea or pro­pos­als as to the way for­ward, in­deed it was as Mr (Ren­nie) Du­mas said in his ar­ti­cle that they did not pro­pose any way for­ward, any sug­ges­tions, apart from con­dem­na­tion.

"I was very hap­py that from the In­de­pen­dent bench that there were sug­ges­tions com­ing for­ward from sev­er­al of them. "I think the com­ment made by Sen­a­tor (David) Small that we are go­ing in­to un­chart­ed wa­ters, that is so to­tal­ly true. The very rea­soned com­ment came from Sen­a­tor (An­tho­ny) Vieira."Ho­n­ourable Sen­a­tor (Dhanayshar) Ma­habir came up with a very in­ter­est­ing ses­sion, which we cer­tain­ly would give con­sid­er­a­tion to at the com­mit­tee stage."Ho­n­ourable Sen­a­tor Mr (Vic­tor) Wheel­er has his own con­cerns and he has spo­ken from a To­ba­go per­spec­tive and the per­spec­tives of his pa­tients.

"He said he has been speak­ing with his pa­tients and they told him to do the right thing. Ho­n­ourable Sen­a­tor as your con­science dic­tates, I am sure you will do the right thing."Per­sad-Bisses­sar took of­fence to Roach's call for an ear­ly elec­tion, say­ing she had nev­er heard an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor mak­ing such a call in her 26 years as a politi­cian. She as­sured the elec­tions would be called when they are due and an­nounced that the pro­posed fixed elec­tion dates were be­fore Cab­i­net."No rea­son­able, fair-mind­ed cit­i­zens can con­ceive that the vote of an In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor caused a coup in T&T. You see that is a sub­lim­i­nal mes­sage to cre­ate fear in the minds of the pub­lic. I doubt In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors here will be so 'jumbied' by such a com­ment."


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