Gail Alexan­der

Arrange­ments with­in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship group­ing do not mean the Prime Min­is­ter will ro­tate the lead­ers of the var­i­ous par­ties in the PP to act as Prime Min­is­ter when she is over­seas, PP press sec­re­tary Garvin Nicholas said yes­ter­day. Nicholas made the point while speak­ing to re­porters on the is­sue of the de­ci­sion for Works Min­is­ter to act as PM while Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is over­seas over the next week. Speak­ing dur­ing a tour of the Prime Min­is­ter's res­i­dence at St Ann's, Nicholas said there were dif­fer­ent roles for dif­fer­ent peo­ple, but it didn't mean that the top po­si­tion would be ro­tat­ed when Per­sad-Bisses­sar was over­seas.

"The PP agree­ment was to fight the gen­er­al elec­tion in a par­tic­u­lar way and gov­ern in a an­oth­er way," he said. "The Prime Min­is­ter chose her Cab­i­net and she runs the Gov­ern­ment on the best way she sees fit." Nicholas said there was no is­sue as to whether Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an should have been se­lect­ed. Dook­er­an, a se­nior front­line min­is­ter with years of po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and as COP's leader, had been tipped by many in UNC to be act­ing PM. Nicholas, how­ev­er, said: "Mr Warn­er got the most votes in the last gen­er­al elec­tions, he is chair­man of UNC and it is the Prime Min­is­ter's pre­rog­a­tive and she de­cid­ed to choose some­one able and ca­pa­ble of car­ry­ing out the job in her ab­sence.

"It is not­ed that it is the first time in a long time that a Prime Min­is­ter has cho­sen an elect­ed MP to act in her ab­sence which shows she feels com­fort­able in her role as Prime Min­is­ter," he added. Asked if every­one in the Cab­i­net had agreed on Warn­er's act­ing, Nicholas said: "I have heard no dis­sent­ing voic­es...many peo­ple spec­u­lat­ed who would be cho­sen and they're free to do that...the Prime Min­is­ter de­cid­ed the best choice is Jack Warn­er and she chose him." He ad­mit­ted that this was Warn­er's first stint in gov­ern­ment. Asked how long Dook­er­an had served in gov­ern­ments, Nicholas said: "You tell me..." On the per­cep­tion that the UNC was dom­i­neer­ing the part­ner­ship, Nicholas said: "There is no group dom­i­neer­ing." He asked why the COP might feel slight­ed if Dook­er­an was not cho­sen to act.

Nicholas said: "There are some very ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple in Cab­i­net at vary­ing lev­els...the Prime Min­is­ter luck­i­ly had a wide choice and I think she has made a very wise choice," Nicholas said. Say­ing that al­le­ga­tions against Warn­er were not an is­sue, Nicholas de­nied that oth­er strong peo­ple might be run­ning the Gov­ern­ment. He said: "That's not true, she's firm­ly in charge of her Gov­ern­ment, she made the point by mak­ing this ap­point­ment. "There is ab­solute­ly no doubt in her mind that she is in charge and com­fort­able and she does not have to put a sen­a­tor in the post, fear­ing her pow­er would be usurped," he added. Nicholas said he did not share the per­cep­tion that Warn­er might be re­ceiv­ing "pay­back" for his work with the UNC. He said the same might be said of an ap­point­ment of Dook­er­an.