Dear Editor,
The collective effort by Opposition political parties (APNU/AFC and ANUG/TNM/LJP) represented in the National Assembly in launching a relentless attack on Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh has stemmed from the ignorance of the three parties that formed the joinder list to contest the 2020 elections, and due to their having garnered enough surplus votes to be allocated one seat.
ANUG/TNM/LJP applied the joinder list provision to contest the elections. One of the primary positions of this arrangement of the joinder parties was that, having won a seat in the National Assembly, they would share the seat on a rotational basis.
It is something not provided for in the Representation of the Peoples Act, Cap 1:03; and despite having lawyers of the highest repute in their collective, not a single person from within those three parties recognized, discovered, or acknowledged that the ROPA Act is very specific on how the seat should be allocated. In their state of blind ignorance, they correctly submitted the name of Mr Lenox Shuman to be appointed as a Member of Parliament. Upon Mr Shuman’s resignation as an MP, they, having been lawfully notified by the Speaker of the National Assembly that a vacancy existed and needed to be filled, submitted to the Speaker the name of Dr Asha Kissoon as the person to fill the vacancy.
Apparently, at this time one Mr. Gerald Forde had resigned from the TNM, and was replaced as Representative of the List of this party via internal manoeuvres.
It is now public knowledge, through a pronouncement that was made by GECOM’s Legal Officer, that Section 97(5) of the ROPA Act provides that the seats allocated to a combination of lists, as in this case: where the LJP, TNM and ANUG joined their lists, has to be further ‘allocated among the lists comprised in the combination’ in accordance with section 97(2) and (3).
Considering that only one seat was allocated to that combination, Section 97(3)(a) mandated that this “one seat shall be allocated to the list with the largest number of surplus votes”.
As the LJP has the largest number of surplus votes of the parties in that joinder combination, that seat had to be allocated to the LJP. There is no allowance for that seat to be rotated among the parties in the combination.
Editor, the truth of this matter is as follows.
1: It is clear that at the time the three joinder parties entered into their ‘agreement’, notwithstanding the existence of legal luminaries among their membership, they were ignorant of the provision that prohibits the sharing of a Parliamentary seat, as is the case in point.
2: At time of extraction of the name of Dr. Kissoon and her consequent appointment as a Member of Parliament, there was no objection, including none from Mr. Gerald Forde.
3: Controversy ensued when Dr. Kissoon refused to demit office as an MP upon expiry of the term for which her name was submitted to the Speaker. We have since witnessed the emergence of Mr Gerald Forde, claiming that he, in his capacity as Representative of the List of the TNM, did not extract the name of Dr. Kissoon from his party’s list. This led to him writing GECOM to inform and call for the Commission to take action which would result in the removal of Dr. Kissoon from the National Assembly. However, apparently for its own reason, GECOM appears to have taken no action in this regard.
4: Consequent to the GECOM Legal Officer’s pronouncement on this matter, agitation of the joinder parties has been resuscitated, now with vigorous support from the APNU/AFC, to have Dr. Kissoon removed from Parliament through some kind of action by the GECOM Chairman. This incitement has reached a stage where this matter is being used in the vilest manner to malign the integrity of the GECOM Chairman, while none of those involved in this despicable effort has done introspection which would have resulted in their recognition of the very finger pointing back at them for their embarrassing illiteracy about the central issue. None will take or accept blame. Why do so when they can singularly and collectively make the GECOM Chair their ‘whipping girl’, thereby deflecting attention from themselves in regard to their now disconcerting folly?
5: Meanwhile, it would appear that the thing to do is to test the matter in court: to determine whether GECOM has the authority to overturn the appointment of Dr. Kissoon as a Member of Parliament; whether the Speaker has the authority to declare the seat vacant, even while Dr Kissoon continues to occupy same; and whether the court has the authority to intervene in the operations of the Parliament.
I daresay this seems to be the logical thing to do under the prevailing circumstances. However, instead of showing that they have the testicular apparatus to so do, the leaders of the aforementioned parties have shown that they prefer to focus their loathsome attacks on the GECOM Chairman.
Editor, this matter, like so many similar others that permeate our newsprint and airwaves, indicates clearly that there is a deliberate, sustained, poorly-concealed strategy by the collective APNU/AFC/LJP/ANUG/TNM aimed at undermining confidence in the GECOM Chairman, and by extension in the conduct and outcome of the General Elections to be held next year.
Sincerely,
Joel Bhagwandin
