Per­sons in­volved in elec­toral pol­i­tics or hold­ing po­lit­i­cal of­fice at any lev­el should be dis­qual­i­fied from be­ing nom­i­nat­ed for pres­i­dent un­til ten years af­ter leav­ing pub­lic of­fice.

In ad­di­tion, pro­vi­sions should be made for re­moval from of­fice of in­de­pen­dent of­fice hold­ers, such as an Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, if they be­have in ways that bring the of­fice in­to ha­tred, ridicule or con­tempt, or are un­able to per­form be­cause of phys­i­cal or men­tal in­ca­pac­i­ty.

These are among the rec­om­men­da­tions in the re­port of the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form.

The com­mit­tee al­so pro­posed that the Elec­toral Col­lege which elects a Pres­i­dent be ex­pand­ed to in­clude elect­ed mem­bers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) and elect­ed mem­bers of the 14 re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions, in ad­di­tion to elect­ed Mem­bers of the Par­lia­ment. The lat­ter al­ready com­prise the Elec­toral Col­lege.

The re­port, which was re­leased this week, pro­posed that the pres­i­dent con­tin­ue serv­ing as the head of state and ex­ec­u­tive branch of the gov­ern­ment, while the prime min­is­ter should re­main the head of gov­ern­ment.

The com­mit­tee gave rea­sons why a Unit­ed States-type pres­i­den­tial sys­tem for T&T would not be prac­ti­cal, in­clud­ing that it would re­sult in a greater con­cen­tra­tion of pow­er, “which is clear­ly not what the pub­lic wants.”

The com­mit­tee said it is es­sen­tial for a pres­i­dent to be per­ceived as above par­ti­san pol­i­tics.

“A Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions Com­mis­sion should vet and ap­prove the nom­i­na­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. This com­mis­sion should com­prise of the Chief Jus­tice (con­venor), the chair­man of the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC), the chair­man of the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the chair­man of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, and a se­nior busi­ness ex­ec­u­tive from the pri­vate sec­tor nom­i­nat­ed by the lead­ing busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions up­on in­vi­ta­tion by the con­venor of the Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions Com­mis­sion.”

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions to be nom­i­nat­ed should in­clude pri­or ser­vice and pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence in the pub­lic or pri­vate sec­tor, the re­port said, and the pres­i­dent’s term should be fixed at five years with a max­i­mum lim­it of two terms.

Two op­tions for the elec­tion of a pres­i­dent were pro­posed - di­rect elec­tion by the peo­ple, or an in­di­rect elec­tion where all elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives at lo­cal, To­ba­go, and par­lia­men­tary lev­els vote for a can­di­date.

In the first, the pres­i­dent can be elect­ed by cit­i­zens in a gen­er­al elec­tion for a five-year fixed term. For a per­son to be nom­i­nat­ed for elec­tion as pres­i­dent, a pre­scribed num­ber of per­sons must sign a nom­i­na­tion pa­per sup­port­ing the can­di­date and sub­mit the nom­i­na­tion pa­per to the EBC. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties would not be per­mit­ted to pro­pose can­di­dates.

The Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions Com­mis­sion will cer­ti­fy that nom­i­nees sat­is­fy the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments spec­i­fied in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

On elec­tion day, all per­sons on the elec­toral roll are el­i­gi­ble to vote for the pres­i­dent. The win­ning can­di­date must se­cure more than half of the valid votes cast in or­der to be de­clared the win­ner. If no can­di­date re­ceives more than half of the valid votes, a run-off elec­tion should be held be­tween the two can­di­dates who re­ceived the high­est num­ber of votes.

In the sec­ond op­tion, the pres­i­dent is elect­ed by an ex­pand­ed Elec­toral Col­lege for a fixed term of five years. El­i­gi­ble can­di­dates must be nom­i­nat­ed by a pre­scribed num­ber of pro­posers. Po­lit­i­cal par­ties would not be per­mit­ted to pro­pose can­di­dates. A Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions Com­mis­sion will cer­ti­fy that the can­di­date sat­is­fies the el­i­gi­bil­i­ty re­quire­ments in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Vot­ing should be by se­cret bal­lot. The win­ning can­di­date must se­cure more than half of the votes cast to be de­clared win­ner. If no can­di­date re­ceives more than half of the votes, a run-off elec­tion should be held be­tween the two can­di­dates with the high­est votes.

The com­mit­tee pro­posed an in­de­pen­dent ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee be es­tab­lished to ad­vise the pres­i­dent and the elec­tion for pres­i­dent should be held non-con­cur­rent­ly with par­lia­men­tary elec­tions.

The com­mit­tee’s list of du­ties of a pres­i­dent in­clude to “ad­vise and warn” gov­ern­ment and over­see broad pol­i­cy is­sues of con­sti­tu­tion­al im­por­tance.