Hinds wants Kangaloo to withhold assent on Special Operations Bill

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is call­ing on the Op­po­si­tion PNM to mo­bilise thou­sands of sup­port­ers and pe­ti­tion Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo not to as­sent to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing its pas­sage in the Sen­ate war­rant her in­ter­ven­tion.

Hinds made the call on Sun­day evening while speak­ing at Arou­ca/Lopinot MP and PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les’ con­stituen­cy con­fer­ence, where he ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion failed to se­cure the sup­port of any sen­a­tor out­side the Gov­ern­ment bench.

The Bill re­ceived the sup­port of all 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors, while all six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors and nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against it. With the cham­ber tied 15-15, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ex­er­cised his cast­ing vote in favour of the leg­is­la­tion, al­low­ing it to pass 16-15.