Gail Alexan­der

T&T may get a gen­er­al elec­tion date soon, pos­si­bly to­day Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hint­ed yes­ter­day.

She made the com­ment, with slight hu­mour, in re­sponse to a query at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

"You'll get your elec­tion date very soon.... who knows, maybe to­mor­row...," she told jour­nal­ists.

The PM made an ap­pear­ance at the brief­ing to con­firm that Gov­ern­ment would not be pre­sent­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (run-off) Bill in Par­lia­ment to­day as some had ex­pect­ed, in favour of do­ing more con­sul­ta­tion on it, and that the Bill and oth­er mat­ters would be plat­form is­sues for the up­com­ing 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment that leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­larise squat­ters was not de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate on Wednes­day, she said Gov­ern­ment would al­so cam­paign on the mat­ter in the elec­tion.

She said her Gov­ern­ment would want to deal in a sec­ond term with the mat­ter, the run-off leg­is­la­tion and oth­er is­sues still on the Par­lia­ment agen­da and which were un­like­ly to be com­plet­ed be­fore the cur­rent term's end.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar stressed the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) would want to bring the squat­ter reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion leg­is­la­tion "very ear­ly" in a sec­ond term.

The PM said the Par­lia­ment was of­fi­cial­ly due to be dis­solved on June 17, next Wednes­day.

PP Sen­ate leader Gan­ga Singh yes­ter­day said the Sen­ate, which end­ed around 2.14 am yes­ter­day af­ter com­plet­ing the Vari­a­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill had ad­journed to a date to be fixed. Singh could not con­firm whether any fur­ther sit­tings of the Sen­ate would be held.

At yes­ter­day's brief­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment had de­cid­ed not to pro­ceed with the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment Bill to­day due to mis­chief cre­at­ed by some who felt Gov­ern­ment was try­ing to "rush the bill through" be­fore the end of the term.

The Op­po­si­tion PNM had is­sued no­tice to all units on June 8 for mem­bers to as­sem­ble out­side the Par­lia­ment to­day in red for a can­dle-light vig­il to protest the run-off bill. But the PNM, via sub­se­quent no­tice on Wednes­day, had told mem­bers not to come to the Par­lia­ment since the vig­il had been "resched­uled."

The leg­is­la­tion had sought to cre­ate a two-term lim­it for the Prime Min­is­ter, in­sti­tute right of re­call for MPs and the con­tro­ver­sial run-off for­mu­la was de­signed to en­sure an MP was elect­ed by ma­jor­i­ty vote of over 50 per cent.

It had elicit­ed crit­i­cism from some quar­ters, in­clud­ing some Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) of­fi­cials, that it jeop­ar­dised small­er par­ties.

On the move to hold off on the leg­is­la­tion, the PM said: "Gov­ern­ment will not be pro­ceed­ing with this Bill since some have been stir­ring up con­cerns that Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to push this through on the last day of the Par­lia­ment.

"I have been read­ing about that and it's cre­at­ing some anx­i­ety in the minds of the pub­lic so let me put that to rest: That we don't in­tend to rush any con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form Bill in the Par­lia­ment.

"The rea­son for my state­ment, which I had in­tend­ed to do in the Par­lia­ment, is that this has be­come im­per­a­tive due to mis­chief cre­at­ed by some who would want to give the pub­lic the im­pres­sion we in­tend to rush the Bill.

"Our de­ci­sion has to do with the fact that we do not want to op­er­ate as a dic­ta­to­r­i­al gov­ern­ment and there­fore we don't want to push any­thing down the throats of cit­i­zens."

She added: "I have lis­tened to the con­cerns of civ­il so­ci­ety on the run-off pro­vi­sion and it seems bet­ter for us and in more pru­dent gov­er­nance mode, that we hold more con­sul­ta­tions be­fore we pro­ceed with a Bill of that na­ture.

"There­fore, we will not pro­ceed with it. We will con­tin­ue con­sul­ta­tion and in our sec­ond term, we will take it for­ward should the elec­torate so de­sire.

"These is­sues will be­come mat­ters for the elec­tion cam­paign and for fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions which can then in­form a leg­isla­tive agen­da in any sec­ond term in gov­ern­ment which we may form."

The Op­po­si­tion PNM had is­sued no­tice to all units on June 8 for mem­bers to as­sem­ble out­side the Par­lia­ment in red for a can­dle-light vig­il to protest the run-off Bill but the PNM, via sub­se­quent no­tice on Wednes­day, had told mem­bers not to come to the Par­lia­ment since the vig­il had been "resched­uled."

Plat­form is­sues

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she knew peo­ple would be dis­ap­point­ed that the Squat­ter Reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion Bill was not com­plet­ed.

She said she would have liked to have start­ed that process but it would al­so be­come an elec­tion is­sue.

She point­ed out that when she an­nounced the idea at a Diego Mar­tin UNC meet­ing in May, she had made it clear the PP would seek to reg­u­larise squat­ters in its sec­ond term. (See Page A7)

"There­fore, the op­por­tu­ni­ty is still there for us to go for­ward," she added.

She said she was al­so dis­ap­point­ed that leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­late the casi­no sec­tor wasn't com­plet­ed in the Sen­ate ei­ther.

She said the sit­u­a­tion had se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for the gam­ing in­dus­try and bank­ing sec­tor, adding al­so that the un­reg­u­lat­ed sec­tor in­volved 10,000-plus work­ers.

An­oth­er mat­ter she was dis­ap­point­ed about was cam­paign fi­nance re­form, which lagged since a Joint Se­lect team re­port came in on­ly re­cent­ly and there was in­suf­fi­cient time to com­plete it. She said the PP would want to deal with these items ear­ly in a sec­ond term leg­isla­tive agen­da.

The PM, how­ev­er, said she was hap­py Gov­ern­ment's pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion was com­plet­ed.

She said that was a pri­or­i­ty fo­cus since it had been promised for the PP's first term and had tak­en al­most all of the term to be passed.