The Op­po­si­tion’s bid to nom­i­nate at­tor­ney Nafeesa Mo­hammed as House Speak­er failed yes­ter­day and Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty votes se­cured the elec­tion of in­cum­bent Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George to the post.

But the PNM nar­row­ly won out since PNM La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP Fos­ter Cum­mings ar­rived late for the vote, re­duc­ing PNM’s 22 votes to 21. How­ev­er the UNC’s 19 MPs were all present for the vote.

Gov­ern­ment House Leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is pro­posed An­nisette-George for the post.

An­nisette-George was Speak­er in the re­cent­ly-con­clud­ed term. The nom­i­na­tion was sec­ond­ed by PNM’s Sham­fa Cud­joe.

How­ev­er, UNC whip David Lee al­so pro­posed Mo­hammed, sec­ond­ed by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Mo­hammed, a one­time PNM deputy leader, is an ad­vo­cate for Mus­lim groups. She has been in the fore­front of seek­ing the re­turn of peo­ple now in the Mid­dle East camps fol­low­ing the fall of the Is­lam­ic State ter­ror­ist group. Mo­hammed re­signed from the PNM re­cent­ly, crit­i­cis­ing its lead­er­ship, and was cam­paign­ing for the UNC in elec­tions.

Yes­ter­day, the Clerk of the House read out Stand­ing Or­ders who pre­scribed that when two peo­ple are nom­i­nat­ed for the post, the per­son first pro­posed would be Speak­er. MPs then vot­ed on An­nisette-George. On Thurs­day the Op­po­si­tion re­ject­ed An­nisette-George, ac­cus­ing her of not be­ing im­par­tial in the last term.

But af­ter yes­ter­day’s 21-19 vote, all MPs, in­clud­ing UNC MPs, bowed to An­nisette-George in the usu­al cus­tom af­ter tak­ing the oath of of­fice and re­turn­ing to their seats.

Al­though the Op­po­si­tion stat­ed on Thurs­day that le­gal re­dress would be sought if An­nisette-George did not with­draw from be­ing nom­i­nat­ed for the post, af­ter yes­ter­day’s vote, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said An­nisette-George was ap­point­ed and the Op­po­si­tion would con­tin­ue to func­tion as MPs.

PNM’s Es­mond Forde was elect­ed again as deputy Speak­er.

How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion al­so ob­ject­ed on an­oth­er mat­ter: the re­duc­tion of speak­ing time in yes­ter­day’s de­bate on the Pub­lic Health reg­u­la­tions.

Par­lia­men­tary speak­ing times were re­duced in re­cent sit­tings due to COVID-19 pro­to­cols to en­sure par­lia­ment mat­ters are com­plet­ed quick­ly.

Gov­ern­ment rec­om­mend­ed re­duc­ing speak­ing time to 30 min­utes for the mover of a mo­tion and 20 min­utes for oth­er speak­ers. Both sides vot­ed on the mat­ter with the PNM’s 22 votes against UNC’s 19 se­cur­ing the time re­duc­tion. PNM’s Cum­mings was in the cham­ber then.