Participants at a Commonwealth-sponsored workshop in Trinidad have agreed that the Westminster system of government must evolve in order to promote greater participation in governance.

Government ministers, opposition leaders and civil society leaders from twelve Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean are meeting in Port of Spain to discuss how governments and opposition parties can work together to strengthen the democratic process in their countries and the region.

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning who addressed the opening session on Monday, said the Westminster system has outlived its usefulness.

He also believes that the practice of governments governing and opposition simply opposing has to change.

Mr Manning said local government bodies, whether they are controlled by opposition or governing parties, should be in charge of community development to allow for greater participation.

Local government

He sees policy being made by the central government with the local bodies as implementers of the policy.

Additionally, Mr Manning said there is a place in the national parliament for the chairmen of the local government bodies.

He believes if this change is made, it can stimulate the constitutional change that's needed.

"It raises and puts very squarely on the table the issue of the reform of the constitution in this country and I suspect in every other country in the region," he said.

NGO representative Sheila Solomon who agreed with Mr Manning, said her idea of increased responsibility and representation at the local level goes beyond what the Trinidad and Tobago leader is advocating.

"Effective local government would free parliamentarians to concentrate on the increasingly complex challenges facing small island developing states in the global environment."

Grenada's opposition leader, Tillman Thomas, is happy with increasing levels of discussion between governments and opposition.

He said that participation can be encouraged by the establishment of a Caribbean Foundation for Democracy.

"A non-partisan Caribbean Foundation for Democracy to educate people on the parliamentary process and to promote democracy in the region."

The conference ends on July 27.

Interesting you put this here Coltrane as I was just reading this minute reading this:

Second, CARICOM leaders cannot forget that at their November 1982 summit meeting at Ocho Rios, Jamaica, 'Big stick diplomacy' and 'Big Brotherism' were both employed by the Reagan administration to collude with Barbados, Jamaica and Dominica (under Prime Minister Eugenia Charles) to introduce a motion to amend the pre-amble of the 1973 Treaty of Chaguaramas by getting "a written-in commitment of member countries to uphold principles of human rights in the region as they apply to the system of parliamentary democracy." (Nantambu 1983,63). The reality is that this motion was implying that the holding of free and fair elections under the British Westminster model, should be a pre-condition for membership in CARICOM; as such, it was not only a covert attempt by the Reagan administration to get Grenada expelled from CARICOM membership but also an attempt to cajole Caribbean governments to isolate Grenada as a communist outpost.

Its good that we are thinking beyond the limits of government modelsleft with us.

More below for the Carribean to beoptimistic..

http://www.trinicenter.com/kwame/2004/2110.htm

who knows maybe they just began thinking with their heads