Gail Alexan­der

The 29-mem­ber Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion will oc­cu­py three bench­es in the Par­lia­ment from this af­ter­noon's first work­ing ses­sion of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, now MP, will be stick­ing to the last seat on the lone PNM bench as well. Seat­ing, how­ev­er, would be run­ning sec­ond to to­day's de­bate re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar met Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley on the is­sue ahead of to­day's de­bate. When both po­lit­i­cal sides meet in the House to­day they will as­sume the seats they will use for the five-year term. This would ba­si­cal­ly fol­low the same or­der in which they sat for last Fri­day's cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of the term since they signed in last week in that or­der, ac­cord­ing to Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials. The dif­fer­ence this week is that the seats will as­sume the nor­mal two-bench con­fig­u­ra­tion in the House cham­ber, rather than the open plan arrange­ment that ob­tained to cater for guests at last week's cer­e­mo­ny.

Each front row has 13 seats and the back bench­es have 12 seats, Par­lia­ment con­firmed yes­ter­day. The Gov­ern­ment's 29 MPs are there­fore ex­pect­ed to be spread over three bench­es, PP of­fi­cials said. The front bench is ex­pect­ed to com­prise Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Roodal Mooni­lal, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, with an ad­di­tion­al seat for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, plus MPs Jack Warn­er, Win­ston Dook­er­an, Er­rol McLeod, Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin, Tim Gopeesingh, Win­ston Pe­ters, Su­ruj Ram­bachan, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, Her­bert Vol­ney (still in hos­pi­tal and ab­sent to­day). The back­bench is ex­pect­ed to com­prise MPs Fuad Khan (deputy House Speak­er) Anil Roberts, Stephen Cadiz, Nizam Baksh, Ru­pert Grif­fith, Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, Prakash Ra­mad­har, Clifton de Coteau, Rudy In­dars­ingh, Del­mon Bak­er, Col­in Par­tap and Lin­coln Dou­glas.

An­oth­er sec­ond set of Gov­ern­ment back­bench MPs would al­so be lo­cat­ed on the back­bench be­hind the Op­po­si­tion bench fur­thest from the House Speak­er. They are ex­pect­ed to in­clude PP MPs Rodger Samuel, Ra­mona Ram­di­al, Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, Jairam Seemu­n­gal and Nela Khan. Yes­ter­day, a PNM spokesman said the Op­po­si­tion bench of 12 MPs would al­so fol­low the same or­der as last week's seat­ing. This com­prised PNM chief whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, Op­po­si­tion Leader/po­lit­i­cal leader-des­ig­nate Row­ley, plus MPs Don­na Cox, Nile­ung Hy­po­lite, Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh, Colm Im­bert, Fitzger­ald Jef­frey, Amery Browne, Joanne Thomas, Ali­cia Hospedales, Paula Gopee-Scoon and Man­ning.

PNM of­fi­cials con­firmed last week that Man­ning had re­quest­ed the last seat on the row. Op­po­si­tion leader Row­ley al­lo­cat­ed places for all oth­er MPs. The Op­po­si­tion would be­gin fil­ing ques­tions for an­swer by Gov­ern­ment and mo­tions for de­bate by next week, the spokesman added.