Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have pushed back at the Prime Min­is­ter af­ter she ques­tioned their in­tegri­ty, brand­ing them “hyp­ocrites” and “bootlick­ers.”

Dur­ing de­bate on the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, yes­ter­day, at least three in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors voiced their dis­ap­proval of the gov­ern­ment’s crit­i­cisms in their con­tri­bu­tions.

Sen­a­tor Michael de la Bastide be­gan by as­sert­ing that if the Gov­ern­ment want­ed their sup­port, it should have held con­sul­ta­tions be­fore bring­ing the Bill to the Up­per House, rather than re­sort­ing to in­sults.

“You see, in­stead we find our­selves in a sce­nario where in­sults are be­ing hurled at us and that sort of nas­ti­ness,” he said, ad­dress­ing Par­lia­ment. “Maybe if, af­ter that dis­cus­sion, you feel that we are against you and that we are just a PNM pup­pet, go ahead and hurl the in­sults. But let’s have that dis­cus­sion first.”

The gov­ern­ment re­quires at least four in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to vote in favour of the Bill to achieve the spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty need­ed for its pas­sage.

“Don’t as­sume that we are PNM. Even if you think—and I know there are peo­ple on the gov­ern­ment bench who know we are not PNM pup­pets—they know that. And even if you think that, dis­cuss it with us be­fore. Hear how we re­spond. See if we change your mind. There’s no need for in­sults or den­i­grat­ing peo­ple,” de la Bastide added.

He warned that the gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach could de­ter fu­ture in­di­vid­u­als from ac­cept­ing ap­point­ments to the in­de­pen­dent bench, even if the UNC nom­i­nates a new Pres­i­dent fol­low­ing Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s term.

“I don’t want to get in­to tit-for-tat, but all I’m say­ing is, let’s try a dif­fer­ent ap­proach. Dis­cuss with us be­fore the de­bate, when you need our sup­port. See if we re­al­ly are PNM pup­pets. See if we can com­pro­mise or of­fer con­struc­tive ideas,” he said.

Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira fol­lowed, de­liv­er­ing his re­marks with mea­sured sar­casm. “I con­fess from the out­set that I am one of those in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors who, ac­cord­ing to re­cent com­men­tary, speaks at length, thinks too much, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly votes ac­cord­ing to con­science. I ac­cept that this may be deeply in­con­ve­nient,” he said.

Vieira sug­gest­ed that, based on the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments, it may ap­pear that the sen­a­tors’ con­tri­bu­tions do not mat­ter and that scruti­ny in the Up­per House is mere­ly “dec­o­ra­tive.”

“I had al­ways laboured un­der the quaint be­lief that Par­lia­ment was a place for rea­soned ar­gu­ment, not mere­ly a stag­ing area for pre-ap­proved out­comes,” he added.

Sen­a­tor Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­ti­enne chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment’s por­tray­al of a “vi­sion­ary leader,” ques­tion­ing whether such a fig­ure tru­ly ex­ists.

“I have been hear­ing from the gov­ern­ment side about a vi­sion­ary leader of vi­sion­ary lead­er­ship, and that’s com­mend­able. But do we re­al­ly know the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a vi­sion­ary leader? Ac­cord­ing to Daniel Cole­man, a vi­sion­ary leader is some­one who in­no­vates, col­lab­o­rates, and com­mu­ni­cates clear­ly. The op­po­site of a vi­sion­ary leader is a to­tal­i­tar­i­an leader who dom­i­nates de­ci­sions and ex­pects com­pre­hen­sive obe­di­ence,” she said.

Lalite-Et­ti­enne al­so re­mind­ed the Up­per House that crime im­pacts every­one, re­gard­less of which bench they sit on.

“I kind­ly ask that every­body keep an open mind. No­body here on the in­de­pen­dent bench is try­ing to block leg­is­la­tion. I com­mend the gov­ern­ment; they are try­ing very hard,” she said.

With de­bate re­sum­ing to­day and a vote ex­pect­ed to­mor­row, Lalite-Et­ti­enne urged the gov­ern­ment to gen­uine­ly con­sid­er the amend­ments pro­posed dur­ing the com­mit­tee stage of the Bill.