While much debate is ongoing as to when and who will fill the two empty seats on the Opposition side of the National Assembly, Leader of the PNCR Aubrey Norton has assured that those seats will be occupied by the next sitting of the House.
The government has not yet announced a date for the next sitting of the National Assembly and the second Opposition seat becomes vacant on March 31, 2022, when former Minister of Education Dr Nicolette Henry’s resignation takes effect. The first vacancy was created on March 15, 2022, when former Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon resigned from the legislature.
Already, the PNCR has written to the leader of the APNU+AFC List of Representatives David Granger to inform him to extract Norton’s name to fill one of the Parliamentary seats. Much debate has been ongoing as to who will fill the next seat with PNCR Executives throwing around names like Volda Lawrence, Gary Best and Mervyn Williams.
On Saturday, Chief Election Officer Vishnu Persaud told Stabroek News that the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has not yet received any notification of a vacancy in the National Assembly.
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 GECOM and the Chief Election Officer of the name of the member who has 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.
When asked yesterday for an update on the process of filling that vacancy, Norton assured that it would be concluded before the next sitting of the House.
“A lot of people seem concerned that we have not filled the seats as yet. What I did was to plead with them to be patient. We will do everything to ensure that those seats are filled and that we have a full complement… I also said to them that we should not be sensational and emotional. We have to face reality. The reality is the PPP only comes to Parliament when they want money. So we didn’t anticipate there was going to be a parliamentary session before the end of this month, which is when the last resignation takes effect,” Norton said while providing an update on his recent trip to the United States.
The Speaker, Clerk and several MPs are currently in Indonesia attending a Parliamentary Conference.
Granger is the leader of the APNU+AFC’s List of Candidates and could possibly 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.
Norton has said that he remains confident that he will occupy the seat in the National Assembly and subsequently the Office of the Leader of the Opposition. Yesterday, he told reporters that he has been communicating with Granger both as the former leader of the PNCR and Leader of the List of Representatives.
“All of our previous leaders would have contributed in different ways [and] all of our previous leaders would have made mistakes. It is our task to look at the contribution, assess it. Look at the mistakes of all of our previous leaders [and] seek to ensure we don’t make similar mistakes and move on. In a nutshell comrade Granger is a former leader of the party who will be treated with the respect that a former leader should have,” Norton told reporters.
He added that the PNCR has been informing the international community on the parliamentary developments.
