In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are sharply di­vid­ed over the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­pose a sec­ond State of Emer­gency (SoE) just 10 months in­to of­fice, deep­en­ing de­bate over crime pol­i­cy and con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­its.

The lat­est procla­ma­tion fol­lows the Gov­ern­ment’s failed at­tempt to pass its pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion in the Sen­ate. On Jan­u­ary 27, the ad­min­is­tra­tion was un­able to se­cure the re­quired three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty, af­ter nei­ther Op­po­si­tion nor in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the bill.

Speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira crit­i­cised the re­newed SoE, say­ing he re­mains un­con­vinced that emer­gency pow­ers ad­dress the struc­tur­al dri­vers of crime.