sto­ries by Rose­marie Sant

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is ready to work with the Gov­ern­ment on the se­lec­tion of the coun­try’s next Pres­i­dent, but the par­ty wants to en­sure the can­di­date “will not be just a pup­pet and a mouth­piece to be run by the pup­pet mas­ter from the Gov­ern­ment and the ex­ec­u­tive.”

Speak­ing af­ter a meet­ing of the Op­po­si­tion cau­cus at the con­fer­ence room of the Debe Wa­ter­park on Wednes­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the per­son elect­ed to the pres­i­den­cy should “be able to ad­here to the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law with­out the ex­cess­es that could come from an over-zeal­ous ex­ec­u­tive and the gov­ern­ment” and must be able to “op­er­ate in an in­de­pen­dent man­ner as de­mand­ed by the Con­sti­tu­tion.”

While every­one wants a name of a nom­i­nee, that’s not the ap­proach the UNC in­tends to take, she said.

A team from the Op­po­si­tion will meet with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and a gov­ern­ment team at 10 am to­day to dis­cuss the nom­i­nees.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said they plan to ap­proach those talks with “an open mind, pre­pared to lis­ten to the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als and to of­fer what­ev­er as­sis­tance we can.”

She said the Op­po­si­tion is look­ing for­ward to se­ri­ous dis­cus­sions, es­pe­cial­ly in light of the sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try “where we are see­ing in­sti­tu­tions im­plod­ing.”

“It is very im­por­tant that we have these dis­cus­sions so that we have a per­son who could be elect­ed by the Elec­toral Col­lege who will be able to act in a man­ner that the Pres­i­dent is to act and that is to say not to be a pup­pet of the ex­ec­u­tive,” she said.

The UNC leader said she is fear­ful, based on in­for­ma­tion from sources, that Gov­ern­ment al­ready has a per­son in mind.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “The sto­ries com­ing to us now is to place a Pres­i­dent in of­fice who will re­move all ex­ist­ing in­de­pen­dents and in fact place again stooges or pup­pets of the rul­ing par­ty. These are things we want to guard against.”

But she said she will go to the talks “with an open mind that these are just ru­mours and we will be able to come to some kind of con­sen­sus with the Gov­ern­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the in­de­pen­dence of the per­son se­lect­ed is very im­por­tant, giv­en the role of the Pres­i­dent.

“Re­mem­ber that the Pres­i­dent ap­points not just in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors but al­so judges, a very cru­cial role for the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers. We can­not have where the ex­ec­u­tive, the ju­di­cia­ry and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent are all in col­lu­sion.”