Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day wished Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley a long stay in his seat as Op­po­si­tion Leader and enough suc­cess to get a sec­ond term in that po­si­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's state­ment–made amid much mirth–was among pre­lim­i­nary re­marks by speak­ers on both sides, as the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives be­gan its first work­ing ses­sion yes­ter­day at the Red House in Port-of-Spain. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, wel­com­ing House Speak­er Wade Mark and oth­er mem­bers, told Row­ley about the Op­po­si­tion Leader's seat which he oc­cu­pied. She said: "I al­so sat in that chair, it was a short stay but I do wish you a long stay and I wish you a suc­cess­ful term...I hope you are so suc­cess­ful you get a sec­ond term." Gov­ern­ment MPs dis­solved in laugh­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so wished Row­ley the best in every ef­fort. She said they had spo­ken al­ready on one is­sue and, "It is a good start for all of us." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she knew Mark would want to see par­lia­men­tary re­form to lift the House high­er than it is. She al­so said that as chair­man of the Stand­ing Or­ders com­mit­tee, Mark would want to look at chang­ing the Stand­ing Or­ders to al­low for "de­bate of greater stan­dard" than pre­vi­ous ones. Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that the peo­ple had vot­ed for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion and when the Gov­ern­ment vot­ed in the Par­lia­ment, it was on be­half of the peo­ple. She said it was a time for new be­gin­nings and "a new day" with the Tenth Par­lia­ment.

Row­ley, wish­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar a suc­cess­ful term, said this coun­try had made it pos­si­ble for her to have made a smooth tran­si­tion from Op­po­si­tion to Prime Min­is­ter, based not on gen­der but com­pe­tence. He said he was giv­ing her as­sur­ance that what he had said, he meant–that PNM would sup­port what is in T&T's in­ter­est and would vig­or­ous­ly op­pose what was not. Row­ley said he was con­fi­dent Mark would pre­side with fair­ness, im­par­tial­i­ty, firm­ness and "of course a sense of hu­mour." He said he was al­so con­fi­dent that notwith­stand­ing what road Mark had trav­elled and with what re­sults, the cur­rent post was a great vic­to­ry for him, the House and the peo­ple. "To­day must be a red-let­ter day in the House, es­pe­cial­ly for those of us deemed to be sub­jects of the king," Row­ley said. Not­ing the Par­lia­ment was start­ing a new leg, it was the Op­po­si­tion's in­ten­tion to con­duct busi­ness in the same vein that was start­ed with Mark's unan­i­mous nom­i­na­tion, he said.

Mark told MPs he was their ser­vant and would pre­side and man­age af­fairs with "com­plete im­par­tial­i­ty." He said he was no stranger to the Par­lia­ment. He ap­pealed to MPs to as­sist him in up­hold­ing the House's Stand­ing Or­ders and Par­lia­ment's dig­ni­ty. Mark al­so thanked his pre­de­ces­sor Speak­er, Baren­dra Sinanan,for his eight years of ser­vice. Gov­ern­ment House leader Roodal Mooni­lal said he had called Mark a sen­a­tor, a min­is­ter and a com­rade be­fore, and it was now a spe­cial ho­n­our to ad­dress him as "Mr Speak­er." Mooni­lal said the Gov­ern­ment was con­fi­dent Mark would be fair but firm and bal­anced.

Ab­sent from yes­ter­day's first work­ing ses­sion were Gov­ern­ment MP Her­bert Vol­ney–in hos­pi­tal–and PNM MP Paula Gopee-Scoon. All oth­er 28 Gov­ern­ment and 11 Op­po­si­tion MPs were present. For­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning took the last seat on the Op­po­si­tion front bench as re­port­ed in Thurs­day's T&T Guardian. The 28 Gov­ern­ment MPs al­so took their seats spread over three bench­es al­so as re­port­ed pre­vi­ous­ly. The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship front bench start­ed with Mooni­lal and end­ed with Vol­ney's seat. Sit­ting on the Gov­ern­ment front bench for yes­ter­day's de­bate (on the po­lice com­mis­sion­er) was Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy. The Gov­ern­ment back­bench be­gan with Deputy Speak­er Fuad Khan and end­ed with Ari­ma MP Rodger Samuel. The third Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship bench–lo­cat­ed be­hind the PNM bench–com­prised back­bencher MPs Nela Khan, Jairam Seemu­n­gal, Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, Ra­mona Ram­di­al and Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas. (See Page A28)