Gail Alexan­der

Par­lia­men­tary de­bate on Gov­ern­ment's con­tro­ver­sial con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form pack­age head­ed for late con­clu­sion last night af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar launched dis­cus­sions by free­ing her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) MPs from col­lec­tive Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to al­low them a "con­science vote".

At the same time, how­ev­er, the PM re­mind­ed her MPs of the PP's elec­tion promise to the pop­u­la­tion for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

"I'm re­leas­ing all MPs of Cab­i­net from the doc­trine of col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on this mat­ter," Per­sad Bisses­sar said at the start of yes­ter­day's pro­ceed­ings.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's "con­science vote an­nounce­ment" was a neg­a­tive re­ply to the Con­gress of the Peo­ple's (COP) call on Sun­day for Gov­ern­ment to post­pone vot­ing on the bill and re­fer it for fur­ther con­sul­ta­tions or a joint se­lect com­mit­tee.

Af­ter COP took that po­si­tion, par­ty leader Prakash Ra­mad­har said he would con­vey the stance to the PM.

How­ev­er, in pi­lot­ing the de­bate at 10.30 am yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar freed her­self of mak­ing a de­ci­sion on the COP's call and al­so freed her MPs, COP in­clud­ed, to vote for or against the bill, or ab­stain as they pleased.

De­bate start­ed on the leg­is­la­tion in­side the Par­lia­ment, with groups of yel­low-clad UNC sup­port­ers and red-clad PN­Mites demon­strat­ing out­side for and against the pack­age re­spec­tive­ly.

Last week, con­tro­ver­sy erupt­ed in some quar­ters af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar laid the bills, in­volv­ing pro­pos­als for a two-term lim­it for prime min­is­ters, right of re­call and the now con­tro­ver­sial runoff poll, where can­di­dates re­ceive less than 50 per cent of the votes cast, in Par­lia­ment.

But in clar­i­fy­ing con­cerns about the bills yes­ter­day–and pro­duc­ing PNM doc­u­ments and re­ports con­firm­ing the PNM had dis­cussed and ap­proved the same pro­ce­dures with­in its par­ty–Per­sad-Bisses­sar said:

"It can­not be that we must do things the same way we al­ways did if we want change and to im­prove. The Con­sti­tu­tion is a liv­ing or­gan­ism, it must evolve and de­vel­op when the peo­ple's needs change."

Not­ing the West­min­ster sys­tem of toe­ing the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty line, or risk­ing res­ig­na­tion or dis­missal, the PM added:

"In the cir­cum­stances, when the fi­nal vote is tak­en on this bill all MPs on the Gov­ern­ment side will not be bound by col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when call­ing the vote but will in­stead take a con­science vote and be guid­ed by their con­science as to whether they vote 'yea' or 'nay'."

The PM added: "I do this in view of the very fun­da­men­tal im­por­tant changes to en­hance T&T's democ­ra­cy so I give all MPs the lever­age to vote ac­cord­ing to your con­science rather than be bound by col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."

She said her Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to re­spect­ing the voice of the mi­nor­i­ty while re­spect­ing the will of the ma­jor­i­ty.

Ex­plain­ing her move to a "con­science vote," the PM said: "To­day, I am say­ing I give you that lever­age and lee­way to vote as you think best as to whether you will seek to keep the promis­es the PP made and the man­ner in which you keep those promis­es and what oth­er mech­a­nisms you may sug­gest.

"This means when the fi­nal vote is tak­en, I will call for a di­vi­sion for that each MP can then reg­is­ter their vote ac­cord­ing to your con­science."

Her an­nounce­ment brought mur­murs of "amaz­ing..." and "his­toric..." from PP MPs.