PNCR Elders will meet this week to help craft a solution to the crisis that has prevented their leader, Aubrey Norton from entering Parliament more than two months after he was elected at the party’s biennial congress.
The stalemate has resulted in the post of the Opposition Leader being vacant since the resignation of Joseph Harmon and numerous questions have been raised about the role being played in this controversy by former President and immediate past party leader, David Granger who continues to occupy the post of Representative of the APNU+AFC List. Norton’s supporters want Granger to give up the role as Representative of the List as it is the Representative who has to sign off on changes to the parliamentary lineup.
Veteran PNCR member and former Prime Minister Hamilton Green was yesterday confident that there would be a resolution to the impasse soon.
“The situation is unfortunate at this time but I think we will sort it out soon. I think they will rely a lot on the advice of the Council of Elders and they will sort it out,” he told Stabroek News yesterday.
Green informed that the PNCR Council of Elders has a meeting planned this week with persons close to the process. When asked who those persons were he would only repeat, “people of significance”.
Those on the Council of Elders include Green, former Party Leader Robert Corbin, Cheryl Sampson, Yvonne Harewood-Benn, Allan Munroe and Jeffrey Thomas.
Following severe pressure from within the PNCR that he surrender the position of Opposition Leader to Norton, Harmon on January 26th announced that he was resigning from the position. However that still did not settle the matter as Norton still needed to enter Parliament first before he could be elected Opposition Leader.
On Wednesday, APNU+AFC MP Dr Nicolette Henry suddenly announced that she was giving up her seat in Parliament and it was then expected that this would make way for Norton to be appointed in time to close out the budget debate for the opposition coalition on Friday. However, not even senior officials of APNU+AFC had been aware of her intended departure and she is yet to comply with the resignation requirements that would then pave the way for her to be replaced. So while the Norton camp had been hoping he would have been in Parliament on Friday to give the closing address for the opposition this was done by Harmon as an ordinary MP and not Opposition Leader.
Up to last evening there had been no official communication to the Parliament Office of Henry’s resignation. Chief Whip of APNU+AFC Chris Jones last evening told this newspaper that he has not been given a resignation from Henry. Jones said that she had not even orally informed him that she was leaving Parliament and he, like many other parliamentarians on the opposition side, only learned through the press that she was expected to resign and heard it confirmed in her address.
“As I conclude my presentation, Mr. Speaker, allow me to place on record a few thank yous, in light that this is my final budget presentation in this honourable House. Of course, I begin by thanking none other than his Excellency former President Granger who reposed in me the confidence to serve in this honourable House. I am forever grateful to the people of this country who afforded me the opportunity to serve them with professionalism, dignity and accountability,” she had said. “I thank the coalition partners, Khemraj, for their unwavering support and guidance,” she added as she turned to her right and looked across at her colleague and Leader of the AFC Khemraj Ramjattan.
“I thank the former Opposition Leader, my friend and colleague, the Honourable Joseph Harmon for his unwavering support. I thank each and every honourable member in this House for the commitment and dedication they bring each and every day, sometimes under the most difficult of circumstances. I thank my family who has always had my back and have supported every decision I made. Today, it is with those words I part company and conclude my contribution to Budget 2022.”
When a Member of Parliament resigns there then exists a vacancy in the House that the party in question would have to fill. It is the duty of the Clerk of the National Assembly to inform the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of the name of the member who resigned and which party they represented.
It is on that basis the CEO would then write to the Representative of the List of that party, Granger in this instance, requesting that they extract a name from the list they would have submitted before the elections.
The name of that person is then extracted and the Representative of the List then writes to GECOM informing them of the proposed replacement so that a certificate of election could be issued.
“The certificate of election says this person was elected for whichever party and it is on that basis the person could then be made a member of the National Assembly,” a GECOM official has explained.
As it is, nothing can be done until Henry submits her resignation as per law so that the replacement process could be initiated.
With the PNCR being the largest party in APNU+AFC, observers have questioned why leading coalition members would stand in the way of Norton taking up the post in Parliament and further humiliate the coalition before the public.
Efforts to contact Norton last evening proved futile as calls to his numbers went unanswered.
Nonetheless, Green believes that the current issue will be resolved in time and will not shake the party. He said that persons have to remember that it is not one person or party making key decisions given that APNU+AFC is a coalition.
“The issue now is that we are not dealing with a single party. One has to take into account the views of the other parties in the coalition. That makes it complex and tactical. The PNC always believes in democracy. It is a tedious process, it takes time and that is what it will be.
“We are not dictatorial as people claim. We will get it resolved,” he added, contending that it will also be done in a democratic way, amicable to all involved.
Asked how soon was the “soon” he referred to, he said he doesn’t want to give a timeline but is confident it will be resolved. “The party has passed through more difficult times than this. We will figure it out,” he said.
