Unwind TT
DANGEROUS 'SATANIC HELPERS' FICTION ABOUT INDEPENDENT SENATORS
UNWIND TT (September 25, 2026): ATTEMPTS to portray Trinidad and Tobago's Independent Senators as "satanic helpers" and little more than People's National Movement (PNM) surrogates because they were appointed by the President expose either a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution or a deliberate effort to erode public confidence in one of Parliament's most important safeguards.
It is a dangerous narrative. It is dangerous disingenuity, if the latter is the case.
Our Constitution deliberately creates three distinct categories of Senators: 16 Government Senators, six Opposition Senators and nine Independent Senators.
The President of the Senate is elected from among the 31 appointed members.
Government Senators are appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister.
Opposition Senators are appointed on the advice of the Leader of the Opposition.
Both groups are political actors. They are expected to operate under the party whip, advancing their respective parties' legislative agendas and, in most instances, voting according to party instructions.
Independent Senators are something entirely different. They are appointed by the President, acting in her own deliberate judgment, from among distinguished citizens representing the broad spectrum of national life.
Their constitutional purpose is not to strengthen either the Government or the Opposition, but to provide Parliament with independent judgment, professional expertise and objective scrutiny.
They do not operate under a Government whip. They do not operate under an Opposition whip. Their allegiance is neither to Balisier House nor to UNC Headquarters.
Their duty is to the Constitution, the public interest and their own informed conscience.
Indeed, if Independent Senators were expected to vote with the Government or the Opposition as a matter of course, there would have been no constitutional purpose in creating a separate category of Independent Senators in the first place.
The framers of the Constitution could simply have allocated those nine seats to the Government or the Opposition. They deliberately chose not to do so because they intended those Senators to exercise independent judgment. Not partisan loyalty.
To dismiss every Independent Senator as a partisan operative simply because of the identity of the President who appointed them is to misunderstand the office of President itself.
The President is expected to act above party politics and, in appointing Independent Senators, performs a constitutional function designed to insulate the Upper House from precisely the kind of partisan capture now being alleged.
If every presidential appointment is automatically branded politically compromised, confidence in every constitutional office becomes collateral damage.
Equally troubling are public allegations that Independent Senators sought government favours in exchange for their votes.
If true, such allegations would raise profound questions about integrity in public life and could warrant investigation by the appropriate authorities.
If made without supporting evidence, however, they unfairly cast doubt on the integrity of individuals appointed to exercise independent constitutional judgment.
Allegations of attempted influence or improper inducement should be supported by evidence and pursued through the appropriate legal and constitutional processes - not left to linger as political insinuation.
The irony is that Independent Senators often disappoint both sides.
Governments accuse them of obstruction when they reject legislation. Oppositions accuse them of collaboration when they support it.
That is precisely how constitutional independence is supposed to work.
Their votes should never be predictable. They should rise or fall on the merits of each bill, not on partisan expectation.
Democracy depends not only on elections but also on institutions capable of resisting political pressure.
Independent Senators were created to be one of those institutions.
They are not constitutional ornaments. They are not political property. They are Parliament's independent conscience.
Political parties are free to criticise the reasoning of Independent Senators. They are equally entitled to disagree with their conclusions.
What they should resist, however, is the temptation to delegitimise constitutional offices whenever those offices refuse to deliver the political outcome they desire.
When every independent institution is dismissed as an enemy simply because it acts independently, the real casualty is not the Government or the Opposition.
It is public confidence in the Constitution itself.
The Constitution created Independent Senators to think independently. Not to vote predictably.
The day they become agents of political convenience is the day they cease to be what the Constitution intended them to be.
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