Re­port­ing by AKASH SAMA­ROO & JANELLE BERNARD

The his­tor­i­cal dead­lock con­tin­ues at the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) as the As­sem­bly failed to de­cide up­on a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

In con­tention were In­grid Melville (nom­i­nat­ed by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment) and Julien Skeete (nom­i­nat­ed by the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots), both of whom won six votes each from the two po­lit­i­cal par­ties elect­ed to the As­sem­bly.

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), Far­ley Au­gus­tine, may have an­tic­i­pat­ed such an out­come when he spoke with CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew, ear­li­er to­day.

He point­ed out that where there are no pro­vi­sions in the THA’s Stand­ing Or­ders to break a dead­lock, the Par­lia­ment's Stand­ing Or­ders are the next step, should there be an is­sue in elect­ing a Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer.

“Based on the Stand­ing Or­ders of the Na­tion­al Par­lia­ment, which were re­vised in June 2015, the Clerk of the House is em­pow­ered to cast lots to de­ter­mine which of the two nom­i­nees will be­come the next Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer,” he ex­plained.

He added: “It could be some­thing as sim­ple as the Clerk of the House flip­ping a coin, or pulling straws, or putting the names in bag and pulling one out, in or­der to re­solve the mat­ter.”

To­day’s dead­locked vote for Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer fol­lowed the swear­ing in of the 12 As­sem­bly­men by Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula Mae Weekes, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Her Excellency Paula Mae Weekes, President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, as she addressed the newly sworn in Assemblymen in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), on Thursday 28 January 2021. (Image courtesy the Assembly Legislature of the Tobago House of Assembly)

Pres­i­dent Weekes ob­served that while the THA re­sults have brought for­ward an un­prece­dent­ed sit­u­a­tion, it is not nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing, as the world has been get­ting ac­cus­tomed to firsts—be it the glob­al pan­dem­ic or the po­lit­i­cal land­scape in the Unit­ed States.

“The word ‘un­prece­dent­ed’ is not a bad word.  Of course, it brings with it its chal­lenges and tri­als, but it al­so brings op­por­tu­ni­ties,” the Pres­i­dent told the gath­ered As­sem­bly­men.

“Op­por­tu­ni­ties to re-imag­ine and re-en­gi­neer how we do busi­ness.  It gives a won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to think whether or not we can serve bet­ter,” Her Ex­cel­len­cy said.

The newly sworn in Assemblymen in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) raise a toast to the new Assembly Legislature with President Weekes, on Thursday 28 January 2021. (Image courtesy the Assembly Legislature of the Tobago House of Assembly)

Ac­cord­ing to the PDP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, the dead­lock presents the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty to make the nec­es­sary con­sti­tu­tion­al changes that will en­sure sce­nar­ios like the present dead­lock are not re­peat­ed.

He main­tains that call­ing a new elec­tion with­out mak­ing leg­isla­tive changes is a waste of time, as there are se­ri­ous gaps in the leg­is­la­tion.

“You all have been wast­ing time with the To­ba­go Au­ton­o­my Bill is­sue.  This has been lan­guish­ing for don­key’s years,” Far­ley Au­gus­tine ar­gues. 

“Please, let’s just fix it now, and up­on fix­ing it, then we can have fresh elec­tions that will give us a fresh man­date, and which will not re­sult in the kind of math­e­mat­i­cal tie that we have now,” he says.