Sat Ma­haraj

Part 3

An­oth­er cause for con­cern in re­cent times is the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.The process of ap­point­ing a Pres­i­dent still leaves one in doubt as to whether any/all of his de­ci­sions will be bi­ased in favour of the par­ty that elect­ed him in­to of­fice.There are al­so oth­er dif­fi­cul­ties such as the po­ten­tial for de­feat­ed po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates be­ing ap­point­ed to of­fice.

Mr ANR Robin­son, who was the Prime Min­is­ter at the time of the 1990 at­tempt­ed coup, sub­se­quent­ly be­came a Min­is­ter Ex­tra­or­di­naire in 1997 in the Bas­deo Pan­day-led coali­tion Gov­ern­ment.The said Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed him Pres­i­dent and there­after he re­fused the ad­vice of Mr Pan­day.Robin­son re­fused to act on the Prime Min­is­ter's ad­vice to re­voke the ap­point­ment of two sen­a­tors and to ap­point two oth­ers in their place.

He al­so re­fused to ap­point sev­en sen­a­tors for some 55 days. Such a sit­u­a­tion is cer­tain­ly un­ten­able when one con­sid­ers that it is the Prime Min­is­ter who is ac­count­able to the peo­ple.Mr Robin­son, who was once sub­ject­ed to an at­tempt­ed bloody coup, in an amaz­ing twist of fate, ef­fect­ed what some de­scribe as a pres­i­den­tial "ap­point­ment" up­on the in­cum­bent Prime Min­is­ter Pan­day in the face of an 18-18 tie at the polls and at which Mr Pan­day se­cured more votes over­all.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers