Bacchanal in the Senate

LOCAL Government election fever seemed to have hit the Senate yesterday, as it debated the Act to validate the Fifth Report of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) for the purpose of Local Government Elections.

Government and Opposition Senators spent a lot of time and energy arguing over the bill which, the Independent Senators believed, was totally unnecessary and redundant, from a legal standpoint.

In the general confusion and commotion that ensued, Senate President Dr Linda Baboolal was not only forced to chastise Government Minister Rennie Dumas and Opposition Senator Wade Mark, but she also had to suspend sitting to decide whether Parliament was wasting its time on a measure that did not really require approval.

Dumas, in explaining the need for the bill, said the Senate’s approval was necessary only because of the late submission of the Report by the EBC, to him. The law required it to submit the Report within three years after its previous report and the EBC missed this deadline by one day.

Dumas, supported by Government Senators Dr Lenny Saith and Danny Montano, argued that the debate on the bill had to be confined to the late submission of the Report, and not to its contents.

The Opposition UNC disagreed with this view. Noting that Dumas brought the Report to Parliament 11 months after receiving it, Mark accused Government of “kidnapping” the Report in order to gain an unfair advantage in the Local Government Elections. Mark slammed “as ruthless, vicious and arrogant” Government’s “deliberate, calculated, undemocratic and manifestly unfair” attempt to “thief the election.”

Mark also lambasted the EBC, which he described as a “PNM party group.” He said the whole electoral process was now compromised and he called on the EBC to tell the country whether it colluded with the PNM to keep the Report “in the lap of the Government for 11 months.”

As Mark veered into an analysis of the Report, Government Senators objected, charging that he was being irrelevant. When Baboolal agreed, Mark complained that she was only listening to the Government, which was trying to muzzle the Opposition.

“I losing my patience. I am not happy with what is taking place here today,” Mark fumed. Dumas also lost his cool, as he accused Mark of imputing improper motives. “You want to railroad us. Why you don’t want us to debate the Report?” Senator Tim Gopeesingh shouted back.

Baboolal chided Dumas for not explaining comprehensively what the Bill entailed during the piloting of the measure. “If you had said all this in your presentation, it would have cleared up all the misunderstandings and all the interjections,” she said, sternly.

In winding up the discussion, Dumas attributed “the enthusiasm” of the Opposition Senators to their desire to preserve their jobs in the face of a possible return of Robin Montano.