Geisha Kow­lessar

There is no mi­nor­i­ty leader but this is not go­ing to pre­vent the vic­to­ri­ous Orville Lon­don-led slate from the PNM's To­ba­go Coun­cil from be­ing in­au­gu­rat­ed as the new To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to­mor­row. "My lawyers have said there is noth­ing to pre­vent the THA from func­tion­ing with­out a mi­nor­i­ty leader and a mi­nor­i­ty coun­cil."

Lon­don said yes­ter­day, as ques­tions arose as to whether the THA Act al­lowed an as­sem­bly to be con­sti­tut­ed with­out a mi­nor­i­ty leader in the wake of the PNM's 12-0 sweep over the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple in Mon­day's THA elec­tion.

For­mer mi­nor­i­ty leader, TOP leader Ash­worth Jack, lost his seat in the elec­tion. It is the first time in the his­to­ry of the THA this has hap­pened and there is now no mi­nor­i­ty leader.

But Lon­don, who held the post of Chief Sec­re­tary for the last three terms, said that would not stop him from be­ing sworn in as a new as­sem­bly­man to­mor­row and car­ry­ing out his fresh man­date. Af­ter spend­ing yes­ter­day con­sult­ing le­gal ex­perts on the mat­ter, af­ter the le­gal­i­ty of the dilem­ma was raised in sev­er­al quar­ters, Lon­don said: "Based on the le­gal ad­vice I have, not hav­ing a mi­nor­i­ty leader is not go­ing to pre­vent the as­sem­bly from be­ing in­au­gu­rat­ed or func­tion­ing."

Lon­don said he was told the Pres­i­dent would mere­ly have to in­di­cate there was a va­can­cy for the po­si­tion of mi­nor­i­ty leader in the THA, "which will be filled at some time." Asked how and when that would oc­cur, giv­en the fact that no TOP mem­ber se­cured a seat, Lon­don said: "The on­ly way in this sit­u­a­tion is if some­body cross­es the floor."

He said the sit­u­a­tion put the THA in a po­si­tion where it would now be chal­lenged in de­ter­min­ing how it could de­moc­ra­tise a sit­u­a­tion that was nev­er en­vis­aged when the THA Act was en­act­ed. There is no clause in the THA Act of 1980, which was re­placed by the 1996 THA Act, which deals with a sit­u­a­tion where there is no mi­nor­i­ty leader.

The act states the THA shall com­prise 12 as­sem­bly­men and that the Chief Sec­re­tary is the one whose par­ty holds the ma­jor­i­ty of seats. The process has been that the mi­nor­i­ty coun­cil com­pris­es mem­bers of the par­ty hold­ing the less­er num­ber of seats. The mi­nor­i­ty coun­cil elects the mi­nor­i­ty leader. Some To­ba­go res­i­dents ex­pressed fear that un­prece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion would give Lon­don au­to­crat­ic rule on the is­land.

But not­ing the im­por­tance of a mi­nor­i­ty leader in the THA, Lon­don as­sured at­tempts would be made by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to find ways to de­moc­ra­tise the way it gov­erned.