In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira says he is con­tem­plat­ing hav­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo brought be­fore Par­lia­ment for con­tempt and bring­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against him.

Vieira says Meighoo seems to be “invit­ing us to test the lim­its of Par­lia­men­tary pow­er and priv­i­leges and I am in­clined to take up his in­vi­ta­tion.”

The tough re­sponse from Vieira came af­ter Meighoo con­tin­ued his ver­bal at­tacks on him, even af­ter a stern warn­ing from Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark that in­tim­i­da­tion and ha­rass­ment of In­de­pen­dents would not be tak­en light­ly.

It al­so came af­ter five In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vot­ed in sup­port of the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, giv­ing Gov­ern­ment the re­quired three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty.

The leg­is­la­tion, which ef­fec­tive­ly blocks for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young from re­ceiv­ing a mil­lion-dol­lar pen­sion, sparked heat­ed de­bate on Mon­day.

Young served as prime min­is­ter for 42 days, from March 17 to April 28, af­ter the res­ig­na­tion of Dr Kei­th Row­ley. The Bill is retroac­tive from March 10, 2025.

Yes­ter­day, Meighoo is­sued a three-page press re­lease call­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira a “dis­grace” and ac­cus­ing him of “shame­less bias”.

Vieira, who ab­stained from Mon­day’s vote, fired back say­ing, “I have made ef­forts by speak­ing with mem­bers on the Gov­ern­ment bench to see if a diplo­mat­ic or am­i­ca­ble res­o­lu­tion, but I get the im­pres­sion that Mr Meghoo is a bull in a Chi­na shop that lis­tens to no one.”

Vieira added that he is now ready to ex­plore oth­er op­tions to ad­dress Meighoo’s at­tacks.

“I am dis­ap­point­ed that Meghoo has com­plete­ly ig­nored the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate’s rul­ing yes­ter­day—it’s not even 24 hours old. 

“I am con­cerned, not just for my­self, but my fel­low In­de­pen­dents- as such I am weigh­ing my op­tions, in­clud­ing: haul­ing him be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for con­tempt of Par­lia­ment, and bring­ing crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against him for breach of Sec­tion 10(b) of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (Pow­ers and Priv­i­leges) Act.”

He added, “The con­stant en­dur­ing ef­fort to cast a cer­tain nar­ra­tive—that’s pro­pa­gan­da, it’s pa­thet­ic and dis­gust­ing,” Vieira said.

He added: “The tone and con­tent of the com­men­tary have been in­tim­ida­to­ry, with sug­ges­tions that if we vote in a cer­tain way we should face pub­lic ex­co­ri­a­tion —this is un­jus­ti­fied, un­war­rant­ed and, in my view, mis­guid­ed.”

He al­so called for greater re­spect for the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, not­ing they have tak­en on the daunt­ing task of na­tion­al ser­vice with so­phis­ti­cat­ed, well-re­searched, and elo­quent con­tri­bu­tions to the Up­per House.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish al­so de­fend­ed his vote, mak­ing it clear ex­ter­nal com­men­tary did not in­flu­ence his de­ci­sion to vote with the Gov­ern­ment.

“I felt no pres­sure, none at all. Noth­ing Mr Meighoo or any­body else could say could bul­ly me. I would not be pres­sured. I will go to my con­science and al­ways look for the truth and try to de­ter­mine the best way for the coun­try,” he said dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves the sen­a­tors vot­ed with con­vic­tion and rub­bished as­ser­tions that they may have been co­erced or ma­nip­u­lat­ed.

He al­so said the Op­po­si­tion’s de­ci­sion to ab­stain from vot­ing was like­ly a strate­gic move.

“They came there with that per­cep­tion that this is kind of like tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey that you can­not sim­ply be dis­burs­ing at, I mean, with­out any ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy and so on. So, I think that their per­spec­tive had noth­ing to do with what Kirk Meighoo may have said.”

He al­so said the Op­po­si­tion’s de­ci­sion to ab­stain from vot­ing was like­ly a strate­gic move.

Ra­goonath be­lieves it re­flect­ed an in­ter­nal bal­anc­ing act; re­spect for a for­mer col­league, weighed against grow­ing pub­lic out­rage, even from PNM sup­port­ers, over what many see as an ex­ces­sive pay­out to Young.