Almost one week after the former leader of the Opposition Joseph Harmon resigned as a Member of Parliament, the Parliament Office is yet to inform the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) of the vacancy.
Harmon on February 28 had written to Speaker Manzoor Nadir signalling his intention to resign from the legislature and on Monday last he sent a follow-up letter where he expressly resigned as an MP.
The initial letter had stated “I hereby give notice of my intention to resign as a Member of Parliament of the 12th Parliament of Guyana with effect from 15th March. 2022. I have given this decision my deepest thoughts and am of the view that it is in the best interest of the APNU/AFC Coalition and the people of Guyana that I resign this seat.”
Clerk of the National Assembly Sherlock Isaacs had confirmed receipt of the second letter to Stabroek News.
“The first letter signalled his intent to resign but yesterday (Monday) I received another letter from Mr Harmon and this was definite. It is ‘I hereby tender my resignation effective March 15 [2022]’ and we consider this as the formal letter of resignation,” the Clerk had said.
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 Elections 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 he extract a name from the list that 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.
When contacted yesterday, GECOM Chief Election Officer (CEO) Vishnu Persaud said that as of Thursday (March 17, 2022) the Commission’s Secretariat did not receive any correspondence from the Parliament Office.
He explained that it is only after the Clerk notifies him of the vacancy in the National Assembly that he could write the Leader of the List of Representative, in this case Granger, to extract a name from the coalition’s list of representatives as a replacement.
“It is the same thing as with the municipalities and so on. I cannot just write the leader [of the list] without being notified even if I read about the vacancies in the media and what the media writes about it. What I can say is that as of Thursday, and I was in the office until after 7 [pm], we did not receive anything from the Clerk [of the National Assembly relating to the empty seat],” Persaud said during a brief telephone interview.
The Speaker, Clerk and other Parliamentary staff are currently in Indonesia attending a Parliamentary Conference. Efforts to contact the Clerk yesterday proved futile.
Harmon, who was Leader of the Opposition at the time, suffered a humiliating defeat at the PNCR leadership elections in December last year. He received a measly 245 while Aubrey Norton received 967 and took over from former President David Granger as the Leader of the PNCR.
Since the elections, there has been a mounting call for Harmon to resign and pave the way for Norton to become an MP. Harmon, who was handpicked by Granger to become Opposition Leader, resigned from the post on January 26.
Norton’s ascension to Parliament depends on Granger, who is the leader of the APNU+AFC’s List of Candidates. He 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.
The Party has disclosed that Granger has been written to informing him that Norton should be named as former Minister of Education Nicolette Henry’s replacement in the legislature. Henry also resigned as an Member of Parliament, with her last day being March 31, 2022.
