Renu­ka Singh

St Joseph MP Her­bert Vol­ney is set to re­sign this week.The res­ig­na­tion is like­ly to take place days af­ter Speak­er Wade Mark de­clared the seat va­cant in the face of Vol­ney's res­ig­na­tion from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress on Ju­ly 30. His seat was de­clared va­cant on Mon­day by Mark in Par­lia­ment.A source told the Sun­day Guardian that Vol­ney will meet with a small group as ear­ly as to­mor­row to is­sue a state­ment on his res­ig­na­tion as MP.

Vol­ney, who has since aligned him­self with Jack Warn­er's In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP), has 14 days to legal­ly chal­lenge or ac­cept the Speak­er's rul­ing.Un­der Sec­tion 49 A (4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, Vol­ney, ac­cord­ing to a state­ment by Mark, is re­quired to cease to per­form his func­tions as a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

The prospect of a by-elec­tion in St Joseph has al­ready drawn in­ter­est from tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty Er­rol Fa­bi­en, as well as from the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP). Fa­bi­en in­tends to con­test as an in­de­pen­dent.

On Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Gan­ga Singh was care­tak­er of St Joseph. He will lis­ten to the con­cerns of con­stituents un­til a de­ci­sion is tak­en by the courts or a by-elec­tion is called. The PM al­so stat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment did not fear any by-elec­tion in St Joseph and was pre­pared to face a bat­tle at the polls or the court.

The COP al­so jumped in­to the po­lit­i­cal fray with its leader, Prakash Ra­mad­har, stat­ing that his par­ty was al­so ready for a by-elec­tion and would ne­go­ti­ate with the part­ners to field a COP can­di­date.Ra­mad­har said in 2007 the COP had a won­der­ful show­ing in St Joseph and he in­tend­ed "to keep those mat­ters open to pos­si­bil­i­ties".At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at Pig­gott Cor­ner in Bel­mont on Fri­day, Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley called on the Gov­ern­ment to an­nounce a by-elec­tion for St Joseph.

Row­ley said as Vol­ney's mat­ter goes be­fore the courts, mil­lions of tax­pay­ers dol­lars will be spent on le­gal fees by the State.The Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley said, did not come to the Par­lia­ment to have an amend­ment to the Stand­ing Or­ders, which she could have done.As a re­sult of this ac­tion, Row­ley said, Vol­ney will head to the court to ar­gue that the Speak­er broke the law and was "judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er" and he was un­fair­ly treat­ed."You have been pay­ing for their fol­ly and stu­pid­i­ty," Row­ley told sup­port­ers.

On Thurs­day, Vol­ney told the Sun­day Guardian that he would not re­turn as a can­di­date in the next gen­er­al elec­tion but warned that a by-elec­tion may come. "Who knows, that might be my trump card."Vol­ney said he in­tends to "go back to pri­vate life and spend time with my fam­i­ly".

Asked if he re­signed as MP if he would re-con­test the seat, Vol­ney said, "I have said it from long ago...at least a month ago, that I have no in­ten­tion of re­turn­ing to elec­toral pol­i­tics. There is no doubt about that in any­body's mind. Why would I want to go back in­to pol­i­tics? For what? I have more to do out­side of pol­i­tics than in pol­i­tics now. That is it for me. I have done three years. Every­body wants the seat, so maybe they should all fight for it."

Yes­ter­day, asked on re­ports that he in­tends to re­sign as MP, Vol­ney said, "In the full­ness of time every­body's ques­tions will be an­swered. That is my call."Vol­ney said he was not anx­ious about the de­ci­sion he has to make.Up to late last night Vol­ney re­mained a po­lit­i­cal no­mad.Sources with­in the ILP yes­ter­day dis­closed that Vol­ney, al­ready re­signed from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, has not yet been ac­cept­ed as a mem­ber of the ILP."We have not yet seen his ap­pli­ca­tion," the par­ty mem­ber said.

The source said that while "tens of thou­sands" of ap­pli­ca­tions have come in, the group in­put­ing the names in the elec­tron­ic data­base have not come acrosss Vol­ney's name just yet."I am not say­ing he did not ap­ply be­cause he said that he did, it is just that to date the ex­ec­u­tive has not had sight of it," the source said.The source said with high pro­file ap­pli­ca­tions like Vol­ney's, the ex­ec­u­tive de­cid­ed to main­tain its open door pol­i­cy.

"All are wel­come but they will not be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly el­e­vat­ed to ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions, they would be or­di­nary mem­bers," the source said. The par­ty's leader yes­ter­day said that Vol­ney will not be the par­ty's au­to­mat­ic can­di­date to re-con­test that seat un­der the ILP ban­ner.While that state­ment raised ques­tions about Vol­ney's po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance to Warn­er, the ILP leader said it was ac­tu­al­ly out of re­spect for Vol­ney's wish­es that he would not be cho­sen to re-con­test that seat if he (Vol­ney) de­cides to re­sign.

Warn­er al­so con­firmed that his par­ty was screen­ing peo­ple to con­test the St Joseph seat. Warn­er's par­ty was prepar­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, but he said the par­ty was ready for a by-elec­tion in case Vol­ney re­signed the seat. The ILP leader said Vol­ney will not be the ILP's au­to­mat­ic choice for the seat as Vol­ney had stat­ed on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions that he would no longer par­tic­i­pate in elec­toral pol­i­tics."The ILP will re­spect that po­si­tion," Warn­er said in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Warn­er said he will re­spect Vol­ney's wish­es even though he (Warn­er) re­signed and re-con­test­ed his Ch­agua­nas West seat on Ju­ly 29, which he won by a wide mar­gin.The prepa­ra­tions for the seat are on­go­ing even as Vol­ney has de­cid­ed to legal­ly chal­lenge his evic­tion from Par­lia­ment.Be­fore he ex­it­ed Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, Vol­ney shook Warn­er's hand and seemed to take so­lace in Warn­er's words "this too shall pass" be­fore he left the cham­ber.

Since then, Vol­ney has re­mained vo­cal about us­ing the High Court to chal­lenge what he deemed to be his il­le­gal re­moval from Par­lia­ment un­der the Cross­ing of the Floor Act. He has since main­tained that Mark did not have the au­thor­i­ty to re­move him from the cham­ber un­der that act."The ILP has al­ready be­gun screen­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, we plan to con­test all 136 seats," Warn­er said.Warn­er al­so said in ref­er­ence to the St Jospeh by-elec­tion, "We shall win the seat."