Rad­hi­ca Sookraj and Ali­cia Llanos

Op­po­si­tion MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed as a hoax, the state­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has sub­mit­ted a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion. Speak­ing to re­porters be­fore she joined yes­ter­day's sit­ting of the Low­er House Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, "I be­lieve it could be hoax, a way to dis­tract the peo­ple."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her pri­ma­ry con­cern was the de­lay of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and the in­fringe­ment of the pub­lic's right to vote. The Prime Min­is­ter first spoke of Je­re­mie's res­ig­na­tion while at the Dayanand Memo­r­i­al Vedic School in Pe­nal, where he had gone to at­tend a func­tion in ho­n­our of top SEA stu­dent Danielle Sie­u­nar­ine. Man­ning con­firmed re­ceiv­ing a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion from Je­re­mie. How­ev­er, he de­clined to say when he re­ceived the let­ter or whether he had ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion.

Asked how he in­tend­ed to deal with the mat­ter, Man­ning said: "Well, Je­re­mie is not here. But I could tell you that he has of­fered his res­ig­na­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter." Asked whether he had ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion, Man­ning held up his hands in mock sur­ren­der and re­it­er­at­ed: "He has of­fered a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion."

'Ba­nana re­pub­lic'

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the post­pone­ment of lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions rep­re­sent­ed a bla­tant dis­re­spect for the coun­try's con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy. "We are in a state of code red. We have be­come a ba­nana re­pub­lic," she said. The bill to post­pone lo­cal polls was passed on Wednes­day night. The Gov­ern­ment stat­ed that elec­tions had to be post­poned in or­der for lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form to take place.