KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has vowed to re­peal four pieces of leg­is­la­tion in­tro­duced by the Gov­ern­ment if it re­turns to of­fice fol­low­ing the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Among them are the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill 2026, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill 2026, the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill 2026 and the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Prop­er­ty, Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment) Bill.

The com­mit­ment fol­lows a unan­i­mous de­ci­sion by the PNM’s gen­er­al coun­cil at a spe­cial meet­ing con­vened by po­lit­i­cal leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les at Bal­isi­er House on Thurs­day.

The meet­ing, which al­so in­volved the par­ty’s leg­isla­tive group, was called in re­sponse to what the Op­po­si­tion de­scribed as a “se­ries of op­pres­sive and un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic leg­isla­tive mea­sures” in­tro­duced by the Gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing at a me­dia con­fer­ence im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the meet­ing, PNM Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader San­jiv Bood­hu said the Gen­er­al Coun­cil had unan­i­mous­ly adopt­ed a mo­tion con­demn­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s leg­isla­tive agen­da and com­mit­ting an “in­com­ing PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion” to re­peal­ing the laws.

Bood­hu said, “Be it re­solved that this gen­er­al coun­cil con­demns in the strongest terms the op­pres­sive, un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and un­con­sti­tu­tion­al poli­cies of the sit­ting Gov­ern­ment. This gen­er­al coun­cil de­mands that the Gov­ern­ment with­draws and re­peals the leg­is­la­tion named in this mo­tion. And, this gen­er­al coun­cil con­firms that the next PNM gov­ern­ment will re­peal the said leg­is­la­tion up­on form­ing gov­ern­ment.”

He added, “I want to point out that the main points of this mo­tion is to say that we are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to cease and de­sist and to with­draw from con­tin­u­ing putting op­pres­sive leg­is­la­tion be­fore the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Con­fi­dent that his par­ty would form the gov­ern­ment “by 2030 or be­fore,” Bood­hu said if the Gov­ern­ment failed to heed its ad­vice, the PNM would take mat­ters in­to its own hands.

He said, “In the event that the Gov­ern­ment, as we sus­pect they will, in the event they fail to do so, they fail to act de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly, then we are con­firm­ing that the next PNM gov­ern­ment will re­peal these op­pres­sive pieces of leg­is­la­tion.”

Al­so sup­port­ing the gen­er­al coun­cil’s de­ci­sion to re­peal the bills, Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle said the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill 2026 was the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ at­tempt to ma­nip­u­late elec­toral bound­aries to win the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due next year.

He said, “The bill has one pur­pose. It is de­signed to give an un­just, un­fair, un­law­ful ad­van­tage to the UNC.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi ar­gued that the Prime Min­is­ter’s ve­to pow­ers over the se­lec­tion of po­lice and De­fence Force of­fi­cers as­signed to spe­cial op­er­a­tions were un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

He al­so raised con­cerns about changes to the pub­lic pro­cure­ment frame­work, claim­ing they would weak­en safe­guards gov­ern­ing pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture.