Panday: Get rid of Senate

OPPOSITION LEADER BASDEO PANDAY is strongly advocating  that the system of Proportional Representation be introduced in Trinidad and Tobago “to solve the many problems that the country is facing at the moment.”

Speaking at the UNC’s scheduled Monday meeting at the Felicity Hindu School, a small crowd was in attendance due to  heavy rains which fell earlier in the afternoon, according to Manohar Ramsaran, MP for Chaguanas, who co-ordinated the event. In his address, Panday said that at last Prime Minister Patrick Manning had agreed with him that Constitutional Reform was necessary, the only difference was that he (the PM) did not approve Proportional Represen-tation. Panday said that the country could get rid of the Senate as the people serving in that House were not elected by the people “so who do they represent and whose views are they projecting?” He felt that if “Tobago could have a House of Assembly why could we not be operating with a National Assembly to govern Trinidad and Tobago.” The National Assembly, he felt, “could be elected on the basis of Proportional Representation so that all groups in the society could have a voice.” 

He recalled that in 1981, the ONR received 91,000 votes and they did not have a seat in Parliament, but under Propor-tional Representation they would have been given an opportunity to sit in Parliament and “their voices would have been heard.” Panday said that “the only way to get rid of voter padding is by introducing Proportional Repre-sentation in the country — one man one vote to elect a Party of one’s choice.’’ “Many groups in the societry would not get a voice in Parliament under the Westminister system of Govern-ment,” Panday stressed. Panday also took a swipe at Dr Keith Rowley and Dr Selwyn Cudjoe for their approach in asking for special treatment for Afro-Trinidadians between the ages 17-24 in the admission of students at COSTAATT and said that “this was racial discrimination at its worst.” Students must be admitted on the basis of meritocracy and not by any system of lowering standards, he said, especially as “we are a plural society where every creed and race must find an equal place.” He said that many Afro-Trinidadians that he had known in the country “are ashamed and embarrassed at what the PNM was attempting to do in the area of tertiary education in the country.” 

Panday said that the comments by various persons in the PNM were confusing and “we are not sure if there is one PNM, two PNM or three PNM.” He called on Party supporters to follow the example of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and pursue a course of action leading to civil disobedience to send a message to the Government that half of the country was being discriminated against. He felt that House Speaker Barry Sinanan was the worst that he had ever seen occupying that Chair and said that he must be a worried man to learn of the PNM policy on education favouring one race over another. Panday called on TTUTA for a response from Dr Selwyn Cudjoe’s opinion  with respect to Indo-Trinidadian teachers  not treating Afro-Trinidadian students equally in schools, and asked, “Where is Trevor Oliver now?”