Gail Alexan­der

Who'll get to speak first–for­mer PNM leader Patrick Man­ning or PNM chief whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald? That's the ques­tion hov­er­ing over to­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives ses­sion where the PNM's con­tri­bu­tion to de­bate on pro­posed bail amend­ment leg­is­la­tion will be in the spot­light. Both Man­ning and Mc­Don­ald have sig­nalled that they would lead off PNM's re­ply on the bill af­ter it is pi­lot­ed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan to­day. And House Speak­er Wade Mark would have to de­cide who beats who to the punch and gets the nod to speak. A state­ment from Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy fol­lowed yes­ter­day's ex­clu­sive Guardian sto­ry, fur­ther con­firm­ing that the for­mer PM would be break­ing his five-month long si­lence in the House to­day.

The state­ment de­scribed the move as Man­ning be­ing "sched­uled to make his con­tri­bu­tion" to Par­lia­ment to­day. Man­ning has not spo­ken since the new Gov­ern­ment was in­stalled. He is the longest serv­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, hav­ing served since 1971 and be­ing Prime Min­is­ter on four sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions since 1991. The San Fer­nan­do East state­ment in­di­cat­ed that in to­day's bail bill de­bate, Man­ning pro­pos­es "to take the Gov­ern­ment to task for its han­dling of the crime sit­u­a­tion." The con­stituen­cy state­ment al­so said Man­ning "will lead off the Op­po­si­tion's re­sponse to a pre­sen­ta­tion by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on the Bail (Amend­ment) Bill 2010." How­ev­er yes­ter­day, a PNM spokesman said that PNM chief whip Mc­Don­ald had no­ti­fied the House Speak­er's of­fice yes­ter­day morn­ing that she would lead off the PNM's re­ply on the bill.

The spokesman said Man­ning had been al­lo­cat­ed third place in the speak­ing or­der of de­bate. The PNM of­fi­cial said Mc­Don­ald, an at­tor­ney, in­di­cat­ed to the Speak­er she would be fol­lowed by PNM MP Don­na Cox, al­so an at­tor­ney. The spokesman said speak­ers on the is­sue were iden­ti­fied by PNM's cau­cus on Mon­day. Oth­er MPs who would speak apart from Mc­Don­ald and Cox would be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the Speak­er to­day, the spokesman added. Those speak­ers are in or­der: Man­ning, along with PNM MPs Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh, Colm Im­bert, Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and Ali­cia Hospedales. The PNM of­fi­cial said Man­ning had not at­tend­ed Mon­day's PNM cau­cus and had not done so since the par­ty's elec­tion de­feat.

"The rules of the cau­cus since the last cau­cus leader's (Im­bert) time was that if you are not present at cau­cus, you are not as­signed to speak," the of­fi­cial said.

"Re­cent­ly, a cou­ple MPs who missed cau­cus asked to speak on mat­ters they had in­ter­est in. They made the re­quest and were as­signed to speak...we have pro­ce­dures." The of­fi­cial said Man­ning in­di­cat­ed to the chief whip three weeks ago that he want­ed to speak on the up­com­ing an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion (ex­pect­ed on No­vem­ber 12) and this has been of­fi­cial­ly sched­uled. How­ev­er, they said Man­ning on­ly in­di­cat­ed on Tues­day–af­ter Mon­day's PNM cau­cus–that he want­ed to speak in to­day's bail bill de­bate. Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that they were hop­ing the sit­u­a­tion with the two PNM MPs vy­ing to lead off, did not cause any pro­ce­dur­al en­tan­gle­ment. They point­ed out–a fact con­firmed by the PNM al­so–that de­spite any of­fi­cial no­ti­fi­ca­tion of speak­ers, the rule is who­ev­er catch­es the Speak­er's eye will be al­lowed to speak in de­bate. The bail bill de­bate will take place af­ter de­bate on a land ac­qui­si­tion Act. PNM's speak­ers for the lat­ter de­bate are Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley and MP Im­bert.

PNM sources said Mc­Don­ald–who was un­avail­able yes­ter­day–firm­ly in­tends speak­ing on the bail bill. PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley did not re­ply to cell­phone calls. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on the pos­si­ble clash of PNM speak­ers, a spokesman from Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East of­fice was un­able to say if Man­ning's lead-off po­si­tion for the de­bate was ap­proved by PNM's cau­cus on Mon­day. She said all the in­for­ma­tion in hand was that Man­ning would lead off. Some PNM mem­bers said yes­ter­day that Man­ning should lead off the bail bill de­bate since he is the for­mer chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and had much in­for­ma­tion on the crime sit­u­a­tion. Oth­er PN­Mites say Mc­Don­ald and Cox are best suit­ed to lead off and deal with the bill's pos­si­ble im­pact on the pub­lic's rights, the ju­di­cia­ry and the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Sup­port­ers from Man­ning's San Fer­nan­do East con­stituen­cy are ex­pect­ed to at­tend to­day's House sit­ting to sup­port their MP's ex­pect­ed ad­dress, a San Fer­nan­do East of­fi­cial said. PNM sen­a­tors who were ap­point­ed by PNM leader Row­ley are al­so ex­pect­ed to at­tend in sup­port of Mc­Don­ald. The bail bill which cur­tails bail in an ex­pand­ed num­ber of sit­u­a­tions re­quires a three fifth ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage–about 25 or 26 votes, Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship of­fi­cials said. Gov­ern­ment has a 29-seat ma­jor­i­ty in the House.