PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – 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. Unlike the Lower House, where the Government enjoys the necessary two-thirds majority to ensure its passage, the Government needed support from at least four independent legislators for the measure to become law.
But when the vote was taken on Tuesday night, eight independent legislators sided with the prominent opposition People’s National Movement (PNM), ensuring the measure’s defeat.
One of the independent senators abstained while 15 government members voted in favour.
As a result, the Government failed to secure the necessary two-thirds majority, with the final count being 15 in favour, 14 against, and 1 abstention.
Before 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 presidents’ 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 on the nine legislators appointed by President Christine Kangaloo, whom she described as a “low-level PNM functionary.
“It is obscene that these nine people, whose only remarkable 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 that was voted for by the electorate.
“And the most egregious ones have absolutely no shame standing in front of Parliament to defend their eating animal 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, which the Government said had been modeled on the Jamaica bill.
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