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Po­lice fired tear gas and rub­ber bul­lets at pro­tes­tors on Wednes­day as Par­lia­ment be­gan de­bat­ing elec­toral re­form leg­is­la­tion. The po­lice had ear­li­er warned that no per­mis­sion had been grant­ed to any­one to stage and protest out­side the Par­lia­ment build­ing on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal.

The Do­mini­ca gov­ern­ment had late last year tabled the three bills, name­ly the Elec­toral Com­mis­sion Bill 2024, House of As­sem­bly (Elec­tions) Bill 2024, and Reg­is­tra­tion of Elec­tors Bill 2024, and Par­lia­ment was meet­ing Wednes­day to give its ap­proval to the leg­is­la­tion that had been re­viewed by the rel­e­vant in­di­vid­u­als and groups since Sir Den­nis By­ron, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), sub­mit­ted his re­port on elec­toral re­form on June 12, 2023.

But the Elec­toral Re­form Coali­tion said it would stage a peace­ful demon­stra­tion to reg­is­ter its dis­ap­proval over the bills that are ex­pect­ed to be passed giv­en the gov­ern­ment’s over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty.