Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi was “right” about a sec­tion of the lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form law in 2019—but what was wrong was Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion on it in 2022 with le­gal ad­vice from a new At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

She said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment should have im­ple­ment­ed the meth­ods used by for­mer late PNM Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning when LG elec­tion was post­poned sev­er­al times.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the claims dur­ing yes­ter­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ de­bate on the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Ex­ten­sion of Terms of Of­fice and Val­i­da­tion) Bill, 2023.

This be­came nec­es­sary fol­low­ing the Privy Coun­cil’s judg­ment against Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the LG term last De­cem­ber. A sec­tion of the LG re­form law was pro­claimed to al­low that.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC al­ways said “... We couldn’t get some­one worse than the past At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, but the present At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is far worse.”

She said for­mer AG Al-Rawi pi­lot­ed the 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment re­form bill - which had the sec­tions that were im­pugned in the re­cent case on the mat­ter, re­sult­ing in the judg­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­count­ed how in 2019 de­bate on the bill, she had warned that the PNM had a poor track record of hold­ing LG elec­tions and would de­lay it. Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed, how­ev­er, that Al-Rawi dis­missed her claim as “non­sen­si­cal.”

“I didn’t have a crys­tal ball then. But what I warned the coun­try about in 2019 hap­pened in 2023 ... they mis­lead elec­torate (but) the Privy Coun­cil sent them pack­ing so they’re forced to call elec­tion!,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

How­ev­er, she said she “...Nev­er thought the day would come when I would give Jack his jack­et when it came to Al-Rawi. What he said then (2019) was to­tal­ly cor­rect.”

That was about the law to ex­tend the term of coun­cil­lors not ap­ply­ing to in­cum­bents, she said.

She added, “That was why we went to court ...”

She said in 2022, Al-Rawi “Was pushed for­ward to change every­thing in the same way he’s be­ing pushed now as the poster boy for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. But I ad­vise him (who has such a love­ly smile at the mo­ment), don’t get chain up be­cause ... they’ll push you over the cliff!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said what changed in the is­sue was that Al-Rawi had “ex­it­ed” as AG and present AG (Regi­nald Ar­mour) en­tered.

She added, “So I’m say­ing (Al-Rawi) had it right. If you’re lis­ten­ing to the Privy Coun­cil, the ho­n­ourable mem­ber (Al-Rawi) was right ... be­cause what they said, was there was noth­ing was wrong with the sec­tion - it is what hap­pened af­ter!”

She said that what oc­curred af­ter, was the Cab­i­net’s in­ter­ven­tion and the new AG was the le­gal ad­vis­er to the Cab­i­net in 2022.

“The Cab­i­net couldn’t have tak­en that de­ci­sion with­out le­gal ad­vice and the ad­vice was demon­strat­ed in the state­ment made by (Al-Rawi) in No­vem­ber 2022, when he said the sec­tion meant LG elec­tion would be post­poned for a year.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the case had been brought against the Cab­i­net.

“So, there­fore, it was the Cab­i­net that took a de­ci­sion which we had chal­lenged on Sec­tion 11-4 ... so noth­ing was wrong with the laws—I’m agree­ing for once with San Fer­nan­do West (Al-Rawi). But here we are to­day to clean up ...”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment could have done what for­mer PM Man­ning did and his amend­ments were nev­er chal­lenged, as they were brought when coun­cils’ terms had ex­pired.