Geisha Kow­lessar

De­spite hav­ing no of­fi­cial op­po­si­tion af­ter claim­ing a land­slide vic­to­ry in Mon­day's To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, Orville Lon­don should face no ob­sta­cles in form­ing an as­sem­bly, Seenath Jairam, SC, said yes­ter­day. "Why can't they form an as­sem­bly? I see no rea­son. There is noth­ing in the law which says it can­not be done. There must be a way and all you have to do it look for it," said Jairam, who is pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion.

Con­cerns have been raised that a mi­nor­i­ty leader is re­quired un­der the THA Act and that there could be no true democ­ra­cy in To­ba­go with­out the pres­ence of an Op­po­si­tion. Jairam, how­ev­er, said there were sev­er­al im­por­tant bod­ies which must play a greater role in en­sur­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process was prop­er­ly fol­lowed.

"Now is def­i­nite­ly the time for the PNM to be­come more trans­par­ent and ac­count­able in their To­ba­go af­fairs," Jairam said. He said the au­di­tor gen­er­al would al­so have to play a more in­trin­sic role in To­ba­go mat­ters, along­side par­lia­men­tary bod­ies, like the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tees which scru­ti­nis­es the run­ning of or­gan­i­sa­tions.

"I am not sure if the THA falls un­der the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tees but it is a good idea to have it cor­po­rat­ed so its op­er­a­tions can be analysed and the pub­lic can al­so be made aware of what is tak­ing place in To­ba­go," Jairam said. Al­so agree­ing there may not be any hin­drances to form­ing an as­sem­bly, Dana See­ta­hal, SC, re­ferred to the "no vote" gen­er­al elec­tion of 1971 when the PNM won all the seats and was able to con­sti­tute a gov­ern­ment.

"So if at that time the PNM could have done it then the THA al­so could form an as­sem­bly, de­spite hav­ing no op­po­si­tion," she said. To­ba­go-born at­tor­ney Mar­tin George, who is al­so a mem­ber of the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form Com­mit­tee, agreed. He said: "There is no con­sti­tu­tion­al im­ped­i­ment that I am aware of which would pre­vent the THA from form­ing an as­sem­bly. It can be done."

He not­ed that one of the core is­sues raised by the com­mit­tee dur­ing its can­vass­ing of is­sues af­fect­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic was in­ter­nal self-gov­er­nance for To­ba­go. "Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form could eas­i­ly ad­dress that is­sue. There is a rec­om­men­da­tion for an in­de­pen­dent bench with­in the THA in the event there is no op­po­si­tion, as in the case of to­day, by the PNM claim­ing an over­whelm­ing.

"The in­de­pen­dent bench would act as check and bal­ance and al­so would pro­vide a crit­i­cal voice to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process." George said it was de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly un­healthy for one par­ty to con­trol all the seats in To­ba­go. "This is cer­tain­ly not a good thing or is it the de­sire of any de­mo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem for one par­ty to have to­tal con­trol and there­fore it is crit­i­cal for prop­er checks and bal­ances be put in place," he added.

THA ACT Says

What the THA Act says

8A. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter ad­min­is­ter­ing the oaths of of­fice to the Chief Sec­re­tary and the Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary un­der Sec­tion 8, the Pres­i­dent shall ap­point as Mi­nor­i­ty Leader the as­sem­bly­man who, in his opin­ion, com­mands the sup­port of the largest num­ber of as­sem­bly­men who do not sup­port the Chief Sec­re­tary.

9. (1) Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the ap­point­ment of the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader un­der sec­tion 8A, the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer shall, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of

(a) the Chief Sec­re­tary, ap­point three coun­cil­lors; and,

(b) the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader, ap­point one coun­cil­lor.