?An agree­ment for pres­i­den­cy will lead to chaos and con­fu­sion, and can­not stand up in court, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dana See­ta­hal. The Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T clear­ly states that "no deal or agree­ment" is used to elect a pres­i­dent. Se­nior Coun­sel See­ta­hal said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day: "The con­sti­tu­tion states clear­ly how a pres­i­dent is elect­ed. The fact is you need to have a ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment to elect a pres­i­dent. "If peo­ple make an agree­ment like that, then you will have to draw up some­thing like a con­tract, and I do not see any­body go­ing to court with such a con­tract, be­cause it would not look good on both sides."

Re­fer­ring to 1997, See­ta­hal said she be­lieved strong­ly that both for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day struck such a deal with the then po­lit­i­cal leader, Arthur NR Robin­son, that he would have been giv­en the post of Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of T&T. "Off hand, I would say if it is some­thing of that na­ture, as you sup­port me and I will give you this, I can­not see that ever be­ing thought to be ar­gued in court. "Prag­mat­i­cal­ly, peo­ple could come to agree­ments like that. It has re­al­ly to do with a ques­tion of trust," See­ta­hal said. The term of His Ex­cel­len­cy, George Maxwell Richards, ends in 2013.

?Sec­tion: (30) of the Con­sti­tu­tion states:

�2 A per­son should not be a can­di­date for elec­tion of Pres­i­dent un­less he is nom­i­nat­ed for elec­tion by elec­tion pa­pers.

�2 Is signed by him and 12 or more mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and is de­liv­ered to the Speak­er at least sev­en days be­fore the elec­tion.