I had promised to set out my ideas for reforming the Constitution as I tend to look with a great deal of scorn upon those who just criticize but do not put forward their own solutions. The premise that I have based my ideas on is that I am looking for a way to give more power to the ordinary person in controlling his/her life, and therefore controlling the politicians.
Looking at the various systems in place around the world, I have come to the conclusion that there is really no need to 'reinvent the wheel'. With a few tweaks here and there the American system could work very well for us and achieve my goal of controlling the politicians. Let me explain:
There are 41 constituencies in the country (39 in Trinidad and 2 in Tobago). What if we divided each seat in two and abolished local government. Why do we need so many local councils in any case? The mayor of Miami presides over about 4 times as many people that we have in a land area that is roughly twice as large as ours! We could the elect (let's call them) Congressmen who would face the polls on a given day once every two years. The Congressmen would have all the responsibilities of the present local councils (garbage collection, etc.) but because they would be in Parliament they would have a modicum of control over their own budgets. And because they are only elected for two years if anyone doesn't perform to the satisfaction of the voters then he/she can be bundled out of office fairly quickly.
But because two years is a very short time we could have, say 41 Senators who would serve for six years in the original constituencies. But one third of the Senators would face the polls every two years. So (to use a rather ridiculous example) if as a Senator I campaigned for a new law to make all men have to wear green pants, what would you say? When I face the polls this year I go down in a rather ignominious defeat over this stupid green pants issue, which, of course, would not be surprising. In the meantime, as a fellow Senator who will be facing the polls in two years after I have been defeated and who has been supporting me on this issue (whether it is for loyalty to me or the political Party to which we both belong) seeing my defeat on this issue, you will quietly drop it. In two short years you will certainly not want to lose your seat and therefore would probably abandon it. And guess what? The voting public would have won!
I would have an executive President elected once every four years and a Cabinet that was appointed by the President but which would have to be approved by the Senate.
This system (which is basically the American system) admittedly has its flaws. We are witnessing some of them right now with Trump's refusal to accept his defeat and his appealing to the baser instincts of the American people. But, as I said in the beginning, we can 'tweak' it to suit us. Certainly, it would be better than what we have now which is (to paraphrase Winston Churchill) an effective dictatorship punctuated once every five years with democracy.
You realize, of course, that this proposal would effectively eliminate much of the powers of a prime minister under our present system. This proposal as a result will, more than likely, never see the light of day.
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