The Senate Tuesday night handed the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government an embarrassing defeat after legislators voted against the Zones of Special Operations (ZOSOs).
The ZOSO legislation was passed in the House of Assembly nearly two weeks ago and unlike the Lower House, where the government enjoys the necessary two-thirds majority to have ensured its passage, the government needed support at least from four independent legislators for the measure to become law. But when the vote was taken on Tuesday night, eight of the independent legislators sided with those from the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) ensuring the defeat of the measure.
One of the independent senators abstained while 15 government members voted in favour.
As a result the government failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority with the final count being 15 in favour, 14 against and one absention.
Prior to the debate in the Senate, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar had been critical of the independent legislators, referring to them as ”bootlickers and brown-nosers’
‘These shameless President’s senators had no courage to contest any election to sit in that Parliament, they are not there because of the will of the people. The entire country knows that these people were appointed because they are bootlickers and brown-nosers,’ she told the Trinidad Express newspaper, when asked if she regretted her earlier comments of the nine legislators appointed by President Christine Kangaloo, who she described as a ‘low-level PNM functionary.
‘It is obscene that these nine people, whose only special ability is bootlicking and self-promotion on the local cocktail and conference circuit, and who no one voted for, can decide on legislation brought to Parliament by a Government who was voted for by the electorate.
‘And the most egregious ones have absolutely no shame standing in front of Parliament to defend their eating ah food. Yet they won’t stand in front of the electorate and ask for a vote to be in Parliament,’ Persad-Bissessar told the newspaper.
Persad-Bissessar said her Government has comprehensive plans to address crime should the ZOSO bill fail to secure the required three-fifths majority for passage in the Senate.
The Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago had also raised concerns about the legislation that the government said had been modeled on the Jamaica bill.