Just over a month after he resigned as Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon has now signalled his intention to resign from the National Assembly altogether.
Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs told Sunday Stabroek that he received Harmon’s letter on Thursday. While some are saying that it was a resignation letter, Isaacs begged to differ.
“The letter was sent to the Speaker [Manzoor Nadir] on Thursday and he forwarded me a copy. It informed of Mr Harmon’s intention to resign by March 14 [2022]. I would not consider that a resignation because a letter of resignation would sound like ‘I hereby submit my resignation effective so and so’ or ‘I hereby resign’ etc,” the Clerk said.
Several calls to Harmon for clarification yesterday went unanswered.
On January 26, Harmon resigned as Opposition Leader but had indicated that he would remain a parliamentarian.
His resignation from the post came after a push by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) for its new Leader, Aubrey Norton, to be made a Member of Parliament and subsequently assume the post. The Leader of the Opposition post has been vacant since.
Norton is still not a parliamentarian and his selection will depend on the Representative of the APNU+AFC List, David Granger. The Representative of the List can determine who is present in Parliament though political observers say his role is mainly ceremonial and it is the leadership of APNU+AFC who should make that decision.
Late January, Norton was elected Chair of APNU after Granger stood down. Harmon also resigned as APNU General Secretary but was asked to stay on for a week. Harmon had been Granger’s key aide during the APNU+AFC administration of 2015 to 2020 and held key posts, including that of State Minister.
When APNU+AFC lost the 2020 elections after a five-month delay that saw attempts to rig the results in its favour, Granger paved the way for Harmon to be elected as Leader of the Opposition.
Yesterday, Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones told Sunday Stabroek that he was unaware of Harmon’s resignation or intention to resign. Additionally, he said that the PNCR has not communicated being in receipt of such a letter.
“The Leader of the party (Norton) is currently out of the country and I am not sure if he received the letter from Mr Harmon but nothing was communicated to me,” he said.
According to a source close to Harmon, his resignation was done after “personal contemplation.” The source related that the resignation letter was sent to both Granger and Norton.
Harmon signalling his intention to depart the National Assembly comes on the heels of former Education Minister and APNU+AFC Nicolette Henry resigning last month Her resignation takes effect from March 31, 2021, after which the APNU+AFC coalition would need to fill the empty seat.
Norton succeeded Granger as leader of the PNCR in December last year and has since then been fighting to occupy a seat in the National Assembly as well as the post of Leader of the Opposition.
At a press conference on Tuesday last, Norton revealed that the APNU informed Granger to extract his name from the coalition’s List of Representatives to sit in the National Assembly.
“As far as I know, a Member of Parliament has resigned and the party has asked the Representative of the List to extract Aubrey Norton’s name to become a Member of Parliament. I wouldn’t want to go past that. When that time comes, we’ll deal with the second phase,” Norton had said.
Granger’s critics have accused him of a unilateral style of decision making, such as the selection of the APNU’s parliamentarians. Following his defeat at the 2020 poll, Granger as Representative of the APNU+AFC’s List handpicked parliamentarians without the consultation of the other parties in the APNU. The AFC selected its own MPs based on the Cummingsburg Accord.
Harmon’s impending exit from the legislature is seen as the end of his political career since he was overwhelmingly beaten by Norton when he contested for the PNCR leadership back in December last year. Norton had received 967 votes, while Harmon received a measly 245. That was seen as an overwhelming rejection of Harmon and his leadership of the Party in Parliament.
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.
