Renu­ka Singh

To­ba­go may be head­ed to an elec­tion re­run if the two par­ties, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) can­not come to an agree­ment about the ap­point­ment of a new Pres­i­dent Of­fi­cer and Chief Sec­re­tary of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) to­day.

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj was the ar­chi­tect of the THA Act and both he and for­mer am­bas­sador Regi­nald Du­mas agree that there are very few ways to re­solve the cur­rent 6-6 dead­lock in To­ba­go.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day Ma­haraj said that the on­ly so­lu­tion to the cur­rent 6-6 dead­lock in To­ba­go is a re­turn to the polls.

Ma­haraj said when he draft­ed the leg­is­la­tion back in 1996 as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al the aim was to give To­ba­go full au­ton­o­my but the leg­is­la­tion had to be amend­ed when the PNM did not agree to that To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.

“It was a dif­fer­ent piece of leg­is­la­tion but the PNM at that time said that they were not sup­port­ing full in­ter­nal self-gov­er­nance for To­ba­go and the orig­i­nal bill which was draft­ed by me was to give To­ba­go full in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment but with­in the Re­pub­lic of T&T,” he said.

Ma­haraj said with the Act as it is, the on­ly res­o­lu­tion to the dead­lock would be an elec­tion re­run.

“My rec­ol­lec­tion of the leg­is­la­tion seems to me that it would re­quire a re­run of the elec­tions be­cause it did not an­tic­i­pate that there would be a tie. It would not be able to func­tion un­less there’s an agree­ment. They would not even be able to se­lect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer,” Ma­haraj said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

Ma­haraj said that based on the tenets of the THA Act, there is no pro­vi­sion to even elect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

“When we went to the Par­lia­ment, me and Mr (A.N.R) Robin­son, we had to amend the leg­is­la­tion, so it was a leg­is­la­tion that we had to amend in or­der to get it passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty be­cause full in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment would re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty,” he said.

“That caused us to be able to trun­cate the leg­is­la­tion,” he said.

The even num­ber of the THA seats though, means that at some point there could be a tie but Ma­haraj said that was nev­er part of the equa­tion when the leg­is­la­tion was be­ing draft­ed.

“Mr Robin­son had the lead role in it and when we went to dis­cuss it with the peo­ple in To­ba­go, that was the feed­back that we got. But that was ini­tial­ly his rec­om­men­da­tion but the peo­ple in the con­sul­ta­tion, that was what they want­ed,” he said.

“They nev­er en­vis­aged a sit­u­a­tion like this,” he said.

Du­mas de­scribed the To­ba­go sit­u­a­tion as as “to­tal cir­cus” but agreed with Ma­haraj that on­ly an elec­tion do over could fix the cur­rent im­passe.

In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day on the way for­ward, Du­mas said he could pro­vide none as “we are all in the dark”.

“The sit­u­a­tion was not catered for in the THA Act,” he said.

He ques­tioned why there was an even num­ber of seats in To­ba­go and re­called the 2001 elec­tion when the PNM and UNC tied at 18-18 and then pres­i­dent Arthur N.R Robin­son would choose the new prime min­is­ter.

“Each was con­fi­dent they would be cho­sen. In this case there is no such pro­vi­sion, that can­not hap­pen,” he said.

Du­mas said that the 12 as­sem­bly­men would be sworn in as ex­pect­ed but then there is the first chal­lenge to se­lect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer.

“That is go­ing to pose the first prob­lem,” he said.

He said that af­ter the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer is elect­ed, then that per­son can se­lect the elec­tion of a Chief Sec­re­tary by the al­ready sworn in as­sem­bly­men.

An­oth­er part of the co­nun­drum is that the THA, if un­con­sti­tut­ed, can­not then dis­solve it­self to make way for fresh elec­tions.

“Every­thing is up in the air now. I want to see what le­gal ad­vice the Prime Min­is­ter will get,” he said.

While a sec­ond elec­tion would be the on­ly way to re­solve the im­passe, Du­mas ques­tioned just how that would hap­pen.

“Ac­cord­ing to the THA Act, the THA lasts for four years from the day of its first meet­ing and then stands dis­solved au­to­mat­i­cal­ly, un­less it dis­solves it­self soon­er,” he said.

Du­mas said un­less the THA as­sem­bly­men are able to se­lect a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, then the THA is not prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed.

“If the as­sem­bly is not prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed, how can it dis­solve it­self,” he said.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day said that it is on­ly through a com­plete con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form that sit­u­a­tions such as this could be avoid­ed.

“First of all, I think the par­ties can get to­geth­er and de­cide on a way for­ward ei­ther by shar­ing pow­er by what­ev­er means by an agree­ment. That way the pres­i­dent can­not do to them what Robin­son did to me,” Pan­day said.