PM: I’m not surprised bill was defeated

Akash Sama­roo and

Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not sur­prised the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate, adding drug mafias and gang mem­bers are now hap­py.

The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment 2026 Bill, which re­quired a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage, did not re­ceive sup­port from a sin­gle In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor last night.

Asked for a re­sponse fol­low­ing the ad­journ­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I told you so.”

Asked if she was dis­ap­point­ed, she said, “Why would I be dis­ap­point­ed?”

She added, “They have shown the en­tire coun­try that I was en­tire­ly right about them. I am quite sat­is­fied that they have proven me right. The peo­ple that are hap­py are the lo­cal drug mafia and gang mem­bers who stand to ben­e­fit from the votes of the nine bootlick­ers.”

The PM said the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have done “ir­repara­ble dam­age” to their bench.

“They have not an io­ta of cred­i­bil­i­ty now in the eyes of the pop­u­la­tion.”

Asked if the Gov­ern­ment would ad­just the leg­is­la­tion and bring it back to Par­lia­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar sim­ply said, “No.”

She added, “We have oth­er plans that are on­go­ing and new ones to op­er­a­tionalise.”

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les cel­e­brat­ed the bill’s de­feat in the Up­per House.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Beck­les said, “The col­lapse of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill in the sen­ate tonight proves that democ­ra­cy is alive and well in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Tonight is a good night Trinidad and To­ba­go. No to ZOSO. No to this wicked Gov­ern­ment. Proud of our Sen­a­tors who stood up for the peo­ple.”

The con­tro­ver­sial bill sought to al­low the Prime Min­is­ter the pow­er to de­clare cer­tain ar­eas as zones for spe­cial op­er­a­tions by se­cu­ri­ty forces, with wide pow­ers mi­nus war­rants and with the abil­i­ty to in­sti­tute 24-hour cor­dons and cur­few up to 72 hours. The sys­tem was to have suc­ceed­ed the State of Emer­gency, which ends Sun­day.

The bill was de­feat­ed due to a lack of sup­port from Op­po­si­tion or In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. It had re­quired four more votes than Gov­ern­ment’s 16 votes. All six PNM sen­a­tors vot­ed against it, as did eight of the nine In­de­pen­dents. On­ly In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish ab­stained.

Af­ter the bill’s fail­ure, UNC’s Min­is­ter in Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der, told the Guardian Me­dia, “Every­one on the sides op­po­site to us had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to put coun­try first- and they failed. They showed the na­tion their true colours and our abil­i­ty to save lives was frus­trat­ed by their self­ish naked pol­i­tics.”

He said the AG had said if he want­ed to, he could have re­moved the bill’s spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty re­quire­ment. “But he didn’t, since he want­ed to bring prop­er law. How­ev­er, it was re­ject­ed by the PNM and In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for rea­sons known on­ly to them. The amend­ments (they pro­posed) had noth­ing sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent to what the bill had. There were more safe­guards in the bill for peo­ple than it had in the State of Emer­gency. But naked pol­i­tics tri­umphed.”

But Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne said, “The peo­ple have pre­vailed. It was a com­pre­hen­sive re­jec­tion of the UNC’s qua­si-ICE pre­scrip­tion for T&T. A great in­jus­tice in the form of le­galised ge­o­graph­ic dis­crim­i­na­tion has been avert­ed.

“Over the past few weeks, this UNC Gov­ern­ment has giv­en the Par­lia­ment the ex­act for­mu­lae of how not to ap­proach a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bill. The Prime Min­is­ter set the tone and her con­trib­u­tors in the Sen­ate fol­lowed with more bile, vit­ri­ol, in­sults, ven­om, ac­cu­sa­tions, bel­liger­ence and overt hos­til­i­ty in­stead of con­sul­ta­tion, flex­i­bil­i­ty and build­ing a prop­er case with com­pelling ev­i­dence.

“The last straw was their ob­sti­nate, hard-head­ed in­sis­tence that they would ac­cept not a sin­gle amend­ment to their flawed bill. They have reaped their re­ward with a com­pre­hen­sive re­jec­tion of their qua­si-ICE pre­scrip­tion for our coun­try.

“The so­ci­ety can im­me­di­ate­ly an­tic­i­pate more bizarre and bit­ter so­cial me­dia posts from the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ters al­ready suf­fer­ing from ex­treme dis­con­nect hubris.”