Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Ex­pelled In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) coun­cil­lor Faaiq Mo­hammed yes­ter­day gave the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) the de­cid­ing vote they need­ed to elect a new Ch­agua­nas may­or and deputy may­or.At the end of the process, UNC al­der­man Gopaul Boodan, af­ter years of ser­vice in a ju­nior ca­pac­i­ty, was fi­nal­ly elect­ed may­or of the bor­ough, while Fe­lic­i­ty/En­deav­our coun­cil­lor De­bideen Man­ick was elect­ed as his deputy.

This ef­fec­tive­ly broke the dead­lock that the cor­po­ra­tion was left in on Wednes­day when vot­ing was pre­ma­ture­ly sus­pend­ed af­ter con­fu­sion erupt­ed among the coun­cil­lors, when Mo­hammed vot­ed with the UNC to elect Cunu­pia coun­cil­lor Van­dana Mo­hit pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to over­see the pro­ceed­ings then.

Yes­ter­day, when the coun­cil was called to or­der at 2.40 pm, Mo­hit an­nounced that based on le­gal ad­vice, the mo­tion to sus­pend Wednes­day's ses­sion was "null and void" and elec­tion of a may­or and deputy may­or would con­tin­ue as pre­scribed by law.She an­nounced Boodan, ILP al­der­man In­drawatie Maraj and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) En­ter­prise South coun­cil­lor Ronald Heera as the nom­i­nees for Ch­agua­nas may­or.Sealed bal­lots were then dis­trib­uted to coun­cil­lors to cast se­cret votes to elect the po­si­tions.

ILP coun­cilors Fal­isha Isa­hak and Sime­on Ma­habir and Maraj be­gan to com­plain. But Mo­hit called for si­lence in the cham­ber.The coun­cil cham­ber was packed, as politi­cians from all sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide, UNC, PNM and ILP, at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's ses­sion at the cor­po­ra­tion's Suc­cess Street, Ch­agua­nas, of­fice.

PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Colm Im­bert, to­geth­er with PNM chair­man Franklin Khan, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Joan Yuille-Williams, sat be­hind the PNM coun­cil­lors, while Min­is­ters Stephen Cadiz, Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, Ra­mona Ram­di­al and De­vant Ma­haraj sat be­hind the UNC coun­cil­lors.ILP leader Jack Warn­er and par­ty chair­man Robin Mon­tano sat di­rect­ly be­hind Mo­hammed, where they heck­led him as the ses­sion was called to or­der.

When the count­ing of votes be­gan, Heera was the first name to be called.This elicit­ed cheers from the pub­lic gallery.As the votes were called out aloud it was clear by the tenth vote that Boodan had been elect­ed may­or.How­ev­er, on the eleventh bal­lot, coun­cil­lor Ma­habir's name was called, which sur­prised many.Mo­hit im­me­di­ate­ly re­ject­ed the bal­lot, prompt­ing Ma­habir to ask why the bal­lot was re­ject­ed."He was not a nom­i­nee for may­or," she said, as rip­ples of laugh­ter erupt­ed in the cham­ber.

She an­nounced the fi­nal re­sults–Boodan five votes, Heera four votes, Maraj two and one re­ject­ed.The UNC min­is­ters, as well as Mon­tano and Warn­er, loud­ly thumped the ta­ble as Boodan was an­nounced as may­or.Man­ick was sub­se­quent­ly elect­ed deputy may­or, re­ceiv­ing five votes. ILP coun­cil­lors Isa­hak and Ma­habir and Maraj opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate in the se­cret bal­lot vot­ing process.

Mo­hammed's vote al­so al­lowed the UNC to seize chair­man­ship of the Fi­nance, Plan­ning and Al­lo­ca­tion, Per­son­nel and Pub­lic Health Com­mit­tees, af­ter Isa­hak, Ma­habir and Maraj again opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate.Warn­er was heard telling Mo­hammed, "It good, it good for you. You want to vote."Mo­hammed ig­nored his for­mer leader and kept to him­self dur­ing the ses­sion. He did not speak to his for­mer ILP col­leagues ei­ther.

Isa­hak lat­er nom­i­nat­ed Mo­hammed for chair­man of the Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture Com­mit­tee, which sur­prised every­one gath­ered to wit­ness the pro­ceed­ings. Maraj sec­ond­ed the nom­i­na­tion.PNM coun­cil­lors nom­i­nat­ed En­ter­prise South coun­cil­lor Heera as chair­man for the com­mit­tee, but he was de­feat­ed five votes to four.

For each of the four vot­ing ses­sions for chair­man­ship of the com­mit­tees, the ILP coun­cil­lors and al­der­man col­lect­ed their bal­lots and im­me­di­ate­ly fold­ed them with­out writ­ing their votes in a form of con­tin­ued protests.Out­go­ing may­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar, in his farewell speech, called on the coun­cil­lors to put aside their bit­ter­ness and work to­geth­er.

He said the time had come, how­ev­er, for cit­i­zens to be giv­en the chance to vote for their own may­or and deputy may­or. He sug­gest­ed that nom­i­nees for the posts be in­clud­ed on the bal­lot pa­per along with the coun­cil­lors.Khan said he was pleased yes­ter­day's process ran smooth­ly. He said judg­ing from the re­sults, it was clear that con­trary to ru­mours, the PNM did not en­gage in horse-trad­ing nor was any deal struck be­tween the par­ty and the ILP.