Trinidad and Tobago will have a new Constitution in 2014, says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
In her New Year’s message to the nation, the Prime Minister said a new form of governance was on the way.
“It has taken time, but I wanted to make sure that the reforms were born out of the desires and ambitions of the people so that those reforms will last,” she said.
List of changes
- Right to recall a Member of Parliament
- Term Limits for Prime Ministers (Mooted by Bruce Golding, forgotten by the PNP)
- Fixed elections dates. (Mooted by Bruce Golding, forgotten by PNP)
“Every family must feel safe. Too many families bear the tragic memory of personal loss, too many of you are traumatised by fear, too many of us feel resigned to insulating ourselves and denying our families the freedom of movement, which is our right, in order to escape criminals and bullies,” said Persad-Bissessar.
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/PM-promises-more-power-to-the-people-238314011.html
So while Jamaican parliamentarian were busy working on IMF bills and removing power from the people of Jamaica, Trinidad’s parliamentarians were busy working on giving real power to the people of Trinidad, then we wonder why Trinidad is having us for supper
Warren's Blog 
Are the People of Jamaica really demanding better?
We are not demanding any better. From as long it is our party in power, then they can do nothing wrong. Everything is defended and if it becomes indefensible then the both parties are the same card comes out.
Grenada is also creating a new constitution. Jay, Jamaican people have no interest in the important issues, they only care about eating a food. No one seems to be interested in the reports of the Auditor General or the country’s poor performance on international rankings
Lolol! So term limits for Prime Minister were forgotten by the PNP?
U memory short bredrin. The term limits for prime minister were forgotten by Bruce himself because he never really did want it. It was just another of his nice sound bites that he knew would go over well with the public and for which he would have any number of excuses not to implement.
He could have easily implemented it with his majority. Sure if the JLP lost the next election then any other government could have repealed it. But that excuse is a very sissy-type excuse for NOT doing something you actually believe in. And note I said “actually”. Bruce didn’t actually believe in it otherwise he would have really pushed for it. Notice that after he shot himself in the head over Dudus we didn’t hear much about his promises anymore? Such as prime ministerial term limits? or turning Portmore into the fifteenth parish? (anybody even remembers that last one?? LOL!)
I’m glad that the craziness of term limits for Prime Ministers was left to die.The Holness-led JLP doesn’t believe it in (when was the last time Holness really pushed for it?) and the Portia-led PNP doesn’t believe in it either. I’m sure though that Portia and Holness don’t believe in it because they want to be able to sit as prime minister for as long as they wish without limit and not because (as I know to be true) the very concept of term limits just can’t work in a parliamentary democracy with a prime minister and a flexible election date. Because in such a system the person who has the support of the majority in parliament becomes Prime Minister. so a prime minister is never directly elected by the populace but by parliament AFTER the parliament has been elected by the populace. Hence a prime minister is only indirectly elected by the populace. Imposing term limits would mean allowing the populace to elect the same person as many times as they want BUT restricting the parliamentarians based on the choice they can make, while still allowing the person who is probably still leader of the party to remain in parliament. This creates a dangerous situation where the REAL leader is not the prime minister but some MP who had previously served as PM but is now barred from doing so but remains head of the party. In that kind of situation the real leader of the country is now totally unaccountable.
For example had there been a two-term limit in place from the very beginning in 1944 and the JLP had won in 1980, 1983 and 1989 then Eddie Seaga would have been Prime Minister from 1980 to 1989 but someone he chose would then become Prime Minister in 1989. Why you ask? Because Seaga was never about to give up the leadership of the JLP unless he was absolutely forced to and there would be no requirement for him to do so just because he wasn’t prime minister (after all he wasn’t prime minister from 1989 to 2005 and was still leader of the JLP). What this would mean is that Seaga could continue to “win” election as the leader of the JLP in JLP conferences but only someone in Seaga’s good graces could become Prime Minister (otherwise he could probably find himself expelled from the party if Seaga and his cohorts didn’t like him). Only now Seaga could put pressure on him to do things as Prime Minister that he may not want to do but would have to if he wants to remain in the party (and if he isn’t in the party then he loses support as Prime Minister and a new election would have to be called or a new PM chosen from the ranks of the JLP).
A second example could be with the PNP in the 1990s. Suppose we had those limits in place. Well PJ Patterson would have been prime minister from 1992 until 2002 and thereafter he could have had Omar Davies become Prime Minister, with himself as leader of the PNP.
Term limits work for offices which are totally independent of other functions. The President of the USA is NOT a member of Congress and is NOT the chairman or leader of his or her party. Therefore the President of the USA can act independently. And even then political party structure in the USA is MUCH, MUCH weaker than in many parliamentary democracies which allows term limits to work there and not so well in parliamentary democracies. If we REALLY want term limits here (and why people keep pining after fantasies and fairy tales is beyond me) then we need to have a change in the political culture such that the party system is a lot weaker (Good luck with that) and so that various offices have nothing to do with each other. And we need to reduce corruption FIRST (otherwise we will simply become the Marcos-style Philippines of the Caribbean instead of a mini-USA south of Miami – and remember Ferdinand Marcos originally operated under a system/constitution which limited him to just two four-year terms like in the USA).
But doing that leads to trade-offs. In such situations the end result is normally grid-lock as happens in the USA because everybody can in effect check everybody else. It’s like a game of 3 player chess where you have all queens instead of pawns and everybody is putting everybody else’s king in check all the time. It does however lead to more turnover of politicians.
Personally I would recommend focusing less on the system and more on the people. Our politicians are so corrupt they probably make Lucifer blush. But then our society is so corrupt it probably makes the Devil stare in wonder. How is that changed? not though constitutional change, but through change at the very base of society. Supporting law and order and teaching children to have good morals (which is in short supply, even some churches you go to nowadays either directly or indirectly give kids the message that you only need to give lip-service to morals and God and what you should REALLY pursue with all your heart is cold, hard ca$h!) and ensuring that children stay in school and don’t get caught up in crap like our corrupt politics from too young an age. That is MUCH harder to do because it requires everyone to play a role after making a conscious decision to do so. But it is easier for people to blame the de-personalized Other (Trinidad, the UK, USA, IOC, WADA, the politician, their neighbour) rather than to seek the solution in themselves.