Even as it met again to find a way for its leader Aubrey Norton to get into Parliament, the PNCR yesterday repudiated a motion which purportedly came from one of its regional branches and which pressed for the recall of four MPs including the former Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon.
“There was no motion for the party to take,” Norton told Stabroek News last evening when contacted.
“In the world of politics all kinds of things happens. I am not surprised, although I might be concerned,” he added.
The document came as the PNCR, which has said that Norton should be Leader of the Opposition and Representative of the List, continued discussions with its parliamentarians and parties within the APNU+AFC coalition in the hope of garnering support for its leader to enter Parliament.
Hours after it was reported that a motion was looming for the removal from Parliament of Harmon, Ganesh Mahipaul, Natasha Singh-Lewis and Nima Flue-Bess, the PNCR issued a statement disputing its existence.
Norton said that the statement is the message it wants to give all of its supporters who are following the matter.
“The PNCR wishes to inform its members and the general public that the Party has not discussed or identified a list of MPs to be recalled from the National Assembly,” the statement said.
“The reports in certain sections of the news media that a motion from its Party in Region #5 calling for the removal of four of its MPs are a total fabrication. No such motion has been submitted by Region #5 and no such motion has been discussed at the Party’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting on Sunday, January 30, 2022,” it added.
Party executives yesterday questioned the timing, given that the party’s Central Executive Committee had a scheduled meeting to discuss how it could encourage one of its current sitting members to resign and send that correspondence to the List Representative, former President David Granger, along with a petition from the party that Norton be named as the replacement.
“This is a very sensitive and fluid time. To ask for Joe (Harmon) to be removed from Parliament is nonsensical. At this time? Why would anyone, with this party’s best interest at heart, send a motion like this to the CEC today? Aubrey isn’t even in Parliament and you are asking to do what? Remove who? Does someone or persons want to undermine the talks we are having? The timing is very suspicious to me,” a party source expressed to this newspaper.
“The meeting was to discuss how to tackle issues surrounding getting Aubrey into parliament, first. It had no place for a motion to remove anyone. People might want to have people removed but that is not our order of business,” the source added.
With the debate on the 2022 budget beginning today, Harmon is listed as the opposition MP giving the key rebuttal on Friday. The PNCR is hoping that Norton could get into Parliament in time to deliver that rebuttal.
The Party is also, according to sources, looking at “alternatives in the event that Mr. Granger refuses” to accept the PNCR’s recommendation that Norton replaces the person that resigns from the House.
Among the alternatives would be to have Deputy Representative of the List Khemraj Ramjattan accept the resignation and inform GECOM of it and the replacement, in keeping with the constitution.
However, the PNCR is hoping that that would be a last resort and that Granger would follow the wishes of the APNU+AFC.
And even as Granger remains adamant that he will be Representative of the List, the Alliance For Change has made its position clear that it will throw its support behind Norton to be the new Leader of the Opposition.
Support from the AFC is seen as significant in Norton’s quest to become Opposition Leader as it is the second largest party in the APNU+AFC coalition.
“The AFC will participate in electing an Opposition Leader only if that person is Aubrey Norton. Because Mr. Granger still is the deciding factor on who will be removed to allow for Norton entering parliament, we await that decision,” an AFC Executive had told this newspaper last Friday, following a meeting between the PNCR and the AFC.
“No! We do not know if that decision will be made by Monday or by the end of next week. Talks continue and we will see how that process goes…,” the executive added.
Granger, this newspaper was told, has not signalled a position on Norton being a parliamentary representative and has had no other meetings with the PNCR on the issue.
As Representative of the List, he is responsible for both naming and recalling APNU+AFC MPs though political observers say his role is mainly ceremonial and it is the leadership of APNU+AFC that should make that decision.
When the PNCR and the AFC met, sources said that discussions centred on AFC support for the selection of a Leader of the Opposition and not Representative of the List.
The two sides, this newspaper was told, were both concerned that with the budget debate beginning today, “the optics look bad — that there isn’t an Opposition Leader”.
It was pointed out during the meeting that one hour of debate time is allotted to the Leader of the Opposition for a rebuttal on the budget.
Following Harmon’s resignation on Wednesday as Opposition Leader, the APNU+AFC Members of Parliament asked Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir for more time to deliberate on the appointment of a new Leader of the Opposition.
“The Chief Whip of the APNU+AFC has said that they will indicate to me at a later time their availability for me to convene a meeting for the election of a new Opposition Leader,” the Speaker informed at the beginning of Wednesday’s sitting, where the 2022 National Budget was presented.
It is the Chief Whip who will have to nominate a person to give that presentation and sources had pointed out that the two parties had up to Friday night not yet agreed on who that person would be as they both are “hoping that it doesn’t have to come to that.”
However, shortly after 11am yesterday, Chief Whip Christopher Jones issued a list of opposition members who will participate in the debate and listed Harmon as the opposition MP wrapping up the debate.
