Mark calls for overthrow of current political system

SENATE OPPOSITION Leader Wade Mark has called for an overthrow of the country’s current political system which he claims puts too much power in the hands of the Prime Minister and ruling party. He said the country is saddled with institutions inherited from its Colonial past which are Westminster in orientation but not “democratic in substance”.

When debate resumed yesterday on Independent Senator Ken Ramchand’s private motion on Constitution Reform, Mark declared: “This political order is a virtual dictatorship.” The United National Congress (UNC) Senator called for a shift away from centralised control because he said it stymied and stifled real development, independence of thought and democracy and hinders institutional growth. “Control is the name of the game. They want to control and when the Prime Minister has the kind of power that we have given to a Prime Minister under our Constitution, you can understand and appreciate this obsession with the whole issue of controlling everything,” he told the Upper House.“Madame President, they want to control you, you know that. They want to control the President of the Senate, they want to control the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I am saying, for instance, the ruling party and its leadership that is now in government, they want absolute control. They want everyone to be a puppet of themselves.” At this point, Senate President Dr Linda Baboolal said she disagreed with Mark’s statement of anyone “trying to control the President of the Senate”.

Mark continued to insist, however, that the nature of the country’s political system is all about control. “Madame President, our Parliament is a mockery of democracy. Our Parliament is a rubber stamp. We do not put the executive under the control that it ought to be put under. The lack of accountability by this executive is clear. What I am saying is that this system needs to be overhauled, we need to overthrow that system because its gives too much power to the Prime Minister and in this instance, to the ruling party ... whichever party is in power,” Mark told the Senate. He added: “This is not good for an emerging democracy. It is a recipe and a potent brew for dictatorship and it is a kind of brew that can give rise to a kind of culture, a kind of control like we found in Papa Doc’s Haiti and we found in Guyana under Burnham and the late Hoyte.” Mark said the Constitution was unsuitable at this stage in Trinidad and Tobago’s development and was more suited to a “crown colony type of society”.