Gail Alexan­der

UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark will breathe a sigh of re­lief when he en­ters the Sen­ate to­day, af­ter be­ing re­tained in the UNC's Sen­ate team by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar..

How­ev­er, Mark has been re­placed as the Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness in the Sen­ate by Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan–one of sev­er­al new Sen­ate ap­pointees.

Oth­ers are "fired" Sen­a­tor Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, for­mer NAR/UNC min­is­ter, Mervyn As­sam, and women's ac­tivist Ver­na St Rose-Greaves. Cur­rent UNC Sen­a­tor Christo­pher Joe­field–ap­point­ed three weeks ago to re­place Ou­dit–will al­so be re­tained. Mark, 57, re­ceived the nod of ap­proval yes­ter­day, de­spite com­ments on Mon­day by UNC chief whip Jack Warn­er that Mark would not be re­turned to the Sen­ate. Warn­er was not avail­able for com­ment last night on the ap­point­ment. Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced the new ap­point­ments dur­ing last night's UNC Diego Mar­tin meet­ing. Ram­bachan, Ou­dit, As­sam and Greaves re­placed Adesh Nanan, MF Rah­man, Jen­nifer Ker­na­han and Sharon Gopaul-Mc­Ni­chols. The out­go­ing team was ap­point­ed by for­mer Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day. Apart from Mark and Joe­field, the new Sen­a­tors will re­ceive their in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment at Pres­i­dent's House, and will be sworn in dur­ing to­day's sit­ting, start­ing at 1.30 pm. They take up du­ties im­me­di­ate­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­formed out­go­ing Sen­a­tors of the de­vel­op­ment and thanked them for their ser­vices dur­ing a 6 pm meet­ing yes­ter­day at the Op­po­si­tion's Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, of­fice. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so wel­comed in­com­ing Sen­a­tors at the same meet­ing. Ram­bachan, 60, whose po­lit­i­cal ca­reer has spanned the ONR/NAR and UNC, was oust­ed as Ch­agua­nas May­or last Ju­ly. He was elect­ed UNC deputy leader in re­cent elec­tions. He co-hosts the Morn­ing Pan­chay­at pro­gramme on Sangeet 106.1FM ra­dio. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ap­point­ment made good on a promise–to put Ram­bachan in the Sen­ate–by for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day, af­ter Ram­bachan was oust­ed in Ch­agua­nas. Ou­dit, 44, a school teacher, was ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate in 2009, re­plac­ing for­mer Sen­a­tor Cindy Shar­ma. Dur­ing the UNC elec­tions, Ou­dit ini­tial­ly sup­port­ed for­mer Op­po­si­tion Leader Pan­day, then switched to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. How­ev­er, Ou­dit was re­moved by Pan­day three weeks ago to make way for PSA vice- pres­i­dent Joe­field to speak on the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Bill.

St Rose-Greaves, of Diego Mar­tin, is well- known as a women's ac­tivist since 1995. She turns 60 on Sat­ur­day; has been very vo­cal–some­times stag­ing one-per­son protests–in sup­port of women's and chil­dren's rights, and has head­ed the work­ing women's or­gan­i­sa­tion, Women for So­cial Progress Group. She is a lo­cal Amnesty In­ter­na­tion­al vol­un­teer and al­so a fem­i­nist and de­vel­op­ment con­sul­tant. As­sam, 71, has been in pol­i­tics for more than 30 years, hav­ing start­ed with the ONR and worked with the NAR and UNC ad­min­is­tra­tions. A for­mer St Joseph and Tu­na­puna MP, As­sam is cur­rent­ly with Con­gress of the Peo­ple, but not on the ex­ec­u­tive. As­sam was chief ex­ec­u­tive of Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank when the CL Fi­nan­cial Group sought a bailout from Gov­ern­ment. Cur­rent­ly a con­sul­tant, As­sam's ap­point­ment is be­ing viewed in some po­lit­i­cal quar­ters as the start of the uni­ty bridge to­wards the COP.

?wade hap­py

?UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark is over­flow­ing with thank­ful­ness for be­ing re-ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate. Sev­er­al of his out­go­ing col­leagues will con­tin­ue work­ing on var­i­ous projects with the new UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion. In a state­ment, thank­ing and prais­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar, Mark not­ed it was the Op­po­si­tion Leader's pre­rog­a­tive to re­move, re­voke or ap­point Sen­a­tors. Sharon Gopaul Mc­Ni­chols–a for­mer COP deputy leader–told the Guardian that she had been asked by Per­sad-Bisses­sar to work with UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal on UNC's uni­ty team with the COP. Jen­nifer Ker­nan­han al­so said she would con­tin­ue on oth­er po­lit­i­cal projects. Rah­man did not stay for the group pho­to­graph of in­com­ing and out­go­ing Sen­a­tors tak­en yes­ter­day.