Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A date is ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced soon for the open­ing of Par­lia­ment’s new term—the First Ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment, of­fi­cial sources con­firmed yes­ter­day.

Last Thurs­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed that Par­lia­ment’s first sit­ting will be lat­er this month. This fol­lows the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, where Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Coali­tion of In­ter­ests de­feat­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment by 26 seats to 13. The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty ob­tained To­ba­go’s two seats.

Yes­ter­day, the Par­lia­ment up­dat­ed its web­site to re­flect the new look House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate bench, which in­clud­ed sev­er­al new­com­ers to the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

This is the sec­ond term of of­fice in Gov­ern­ment for the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion. The first was from 2010 to 2015 with the UNC-led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion.

Of­fi­cial sources said yes­ter­day that the an­nounce­ment of Par­lia­ment’s open­ing is ahead, and word may come pos­si­bly af­ter Thurs­day’s Cab­i­net meet­ing.

The event will be a full cer­e­mo­ni­al launch of the new term, which will in­volve mem­bers of par­lia­ment and sen­a­tors tak­ing the oath of of­fice, the in­stal­la­tion of the House Speak­er and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, as well as an ad­dress from Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. It is ex­pect­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar will ad­dress the gath­er­ing, as well as Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Guests will in­clude mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps, the Ju­di­cia­ry, re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tions and oth­er en­ti­ties, along with the rel­a­tives of Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo will al­so ap­point nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors from var­i­ous fields across the coun­try. It is un­der­stood that this will be a mix of for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and new faces.

The Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment in­volves a 25-mem­ber Cab­i­net com­pris­ing MPs and Sen­a­tors, plus five Min­is­ters of State and six par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries.

The House Speak­er is tipped to be a “per­son of ex­pe­ri­ence in pol­i­tics and Par­lia­ment,” ac­cord­ing to UNC sources.

The deputy Speak­er is tipped to be Princes Town MP Dr Aiy­na Ali, sources said. Out of the 26 UNC MPS, she was not giv­en a port­fo­lio in the Gov­ern­ment line­up, as per pro­to­col for the po­si­tion of Deputy Speak­er.

UNC sources have tipped ei­ther En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal or Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee to be Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

For­mer House Speak­er Wade Mark, who served in that post from 2010 to 2015, is ex­pect­ed to be ap­point­ed Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, sources con­firmed. In that ca­pac­i­ty, Mark will act as the Pres­i­dent of T&T once sub­stan­tive of­fice­hold­er Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo is out of the coun­try.

The UNC Gov­ern­ment has al­ready ap­point­ed 11 Sen­a­tors out of the 16 places al­lo­cat­ed for Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors. Five more will be sworn in­to of­fice when the Par­lia­ment is launched, in­clud­ing the Sen­ate’s lead­ers.

There has been spec­u­la­tion that the re­main­ing Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors could in­clude for­mer UNC sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al as Sen­ate vice pres­i­dent, and for­mer sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der.

On the Op­po­si­tion side, apart from the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s 13 MPs—four of whom are new faces—the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip is ex­pect­ed to be ei­ther Mar­vin Gon­za­les or Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, ac­cord­ing to PNM sources.

The Op­po­si­tion’s Sen­a­tors will al­so be con­firmed this week.

They are tipped to in­clude for­mer min­is­ter Dr Amery Brown (be­ing eyed as Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader), de­feat­ed can­di­dates Fos­ter Cum­mings, Faris Al-Rawi, pos­si­bly Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis, Vi­ash Nand­lal and a busi­ness rep­re­sen­ta­tive.