Gail Alexan­der

Hint­ing at the tone of his up­com­ing tenure, Pres­i­dent-elect An­tho­ny Car­mona has start­ed off what he al­so de­scribes as "a new process," by pay­ing trib­ute to in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. He was speak­ing at the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day af­ter re­ceiv­ing his in­stru­ments of elec­tion from Speak­er Wade Mark, af­ter the elec­toral col­lege's rat­i­fi­ca­tion of his elec­tion last Fri­day.

Thank­ing the me­dia for kind sen­ti­ments, Car­mona said he would not take any ques­tions since he felt, in the cir­cum­stances, he need­ed to in­voke stan­dards of comi­ty and ci­vil­i­ty, giv­en the fact that T&T still had an in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent. He added: "I feel, for ex­am­ple, some­times, you know, we have a ter­ri­ble habit of dis­card­ing the old and glo­ri­fy­ing the new and I want to be no part of that."I want to say how gra­cious a man he (Richards) has been over the years to me per­son­al­ly and I wish him all the best in his re­tire­ment and, in fact, I want to thank him on be­half of the wider com­mu­ni­ty for the ster­ling role he has played dur­ing his ten-year stew­ard­ship."

Car­mona al­so told re­porters: "So as much as I know you all want to ask ques­tions, we are en­gag­ing in new process–a fresh breeze, you may call it."It start­ed here this morn­ing with the ho­n­ourable Speak­er of the House do­ing some­thing very in­no­v­a­tive and in my view some­thing very com­mend­able, to bring a sense of gov­er­nance to all and sundry. "That gov­er­nance must not be a clois­tered re­al­i­ty. It is for all and by this sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny, a sig­nal has been sent for all-in­clu­sive­ness in the con­duct of the af­fairs in this coun­try."

Car­mona was ac­com­pa­nied by his wife, Reema, and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers.Par­lia­ment, in a state­ment yes­ter­day, said the event was to present Car­mona with in­stru­ments con­firm­ing his elec­tion to the of­fice of Pres­i­dent, rather than his in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment. Mark, mak­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion, de­clared Car­mona Pres­i­dent-elect."Warmest con­grat­u­la­tions, Mr Pres­i­dent-elect," Mark added.

In Car­mona's ad­dress, his first of­fi­cial one since be­ing elect­ed, he said: "It would be re­miss of me if I did not thank ho­n­ourable sen­a­tor Mark, chair­man of the elec­toral col­lege, and the elec­toral col­lege for the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty they have placed on my shoul­ders. "I feel com­pelled to in­di­cate to all and sundry, I am pre­pared to serve this na­tion with the same kind of clar­i­ty, ob­jec­tiv­i­ty, fair­ness and due process that I have al­ways in­voked in my ca­pac­i­ty as deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and act­ing DPP, as a for­mer ap­peals coun­sel at the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for Yu­goslavia and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for Rwan­da, and as a judge of the High Court, and I feel ho­n­oured to be so be­stowed with this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty."

Car­mona al­so thanked the Prime Min­is­ter, who is in Haiti.He added: "I have to thank the Op­po­si­tion Leader Mr Kei­th Row­ley for his kind sen­ti­ments that he has ex­pressed pub­licly, in fact the var­i­ous mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, who, in my view, have kind­ly ex­pressed their sup­port for my stew­ard­ship as Pres­i­dent of this beloved re­pub­lic of T&T."There is no deny­ing that it is in­deed an oner­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty but it is one I feel in the cir­cum­stances that by the grace of God I am pre­pared to do and to ex­e­cute. I have to thank almighty God."

He al­so thanked his wife, his un­cle Desmond Dick­ie, his broth­er-in law Dr Nan­di Har­rysingh and his sis­ters, at­tor­ney Faye (Fe­lici­ta) Gre­goire and Cheryll Fos­ter.Car­mona said: "I have to thank my par­ents, who have kept me in good stead to be where I am to­day; my com­mu­ni­ty."It is in­deed fit­ting for me to make a com­ment to the ef­fect that it takes a vil­lage to raise a child as I have lived in many vil­lages down in deep South and every­one there, they have played a ma­jor role and part in my stew­ard­ship as a young man grow­ing up and as a pro­fes­sion­al. They have giv­en me un­stint­ing sup­port."

Be­fore re­ceiv­ing the in­stru­ments of elec­tion, Car­mona com­mend­ed Mark for the func­tion, say­ing in the past the process had been dealt with dif­fer­ent­ly. In pre­vi­ous times, he said, it might hard­ly have even been known that the process was be­ing car­ried out.He quipped that the Mar­shal of the Par­lia­ment might, in those days, have tak­en the in­stru­ments in a hired car and "passed it to some­one over a fence."Car­mona said he felt in the con­text of the need for open gov­er­nance, Mark's func­tion yes­ter­day was a good ini­tia­tive and the idea was well ex­e­cut­ed and bod­ed quite well.

Car­mona, 59, is ex­pect­ed to be ad­min­is­tered the oath of of­fice by Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie on March 18 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um. Richards, 82, will re­tire on March 17 when his term ends.

More In­fo

While the spot­light of yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment func­tion was on Pres­i­dent-elect An­tho­ny TA Car­mona, his wife Reema Har­rysingh-Car­mona was al­so the fo­cus of much at­ten­tion. Har­rysingh-Car­mona, 43, is an econ­o­mist from a busi­ness fam­i­ly from Thick Vil­lage, Siparia, where the fam­i­ly's Sun­co En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Co has been based for years. The cou­ple has two chil­dren, Chris­t­ian, 12, and ten. They were not at yes­ter­day's func­tion. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing the cou­ple were Car­mona's un­cle, Desmond Dick­ie, and his sis­ters Fe­lici­ta Gre­goire and Cheryll Fos­ter. Al­so present was Car­mona's broth­er-in-law Dr Nan­di Har­rysingh, his wife's broth­er.