Renu­ka Singh

It is now up to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to de­ter­mine whether for­mer Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo re­turns to the Sen­ate.

Dur­ing the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley gave a non-com­mit­tal re­ply when asked about Kan­ga­loo re­turn­ing to the po­si­tion of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Hamid Ghany yes­ter­day said that be­cause Row­ley has al­ready named his 16 Sen­a­tors, the on­ly way Kan­ga­loo could be named Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, if she was list­ed among the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors se­lect­ed and ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent.

"Dr Row­ley was am­biva­lent," Ghany said yes­ter­day.

"The Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate has tra­di­tion­al­ly been nom­i­nat­ed in the Sen­ate from among that 16 and there­fore that per­son is put in the chair. The on­ly oth­er way, in deal­ing with his am­bigu­ous an­swer, would be if the pres­i­dent would in­clude Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo among her nine sen­a­tors," Ghany said.

"I doubt very much that the Op­po­si­tion would in­clude her among their six," he said.

"So, among that nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors that the Pres­i­dent has to name, if she names Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as one of those nine sen­a­tors, then the Gov­ern­ment will use its ma­jor­i­ty, I sus­pect, to be able to elect her as Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate," he said.

Ghany said that this sce­nario would re­duce the in­de­pen­dent bench to eight and al­low the Gov­ern­ment to have a ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate that it does not cur­rent­ly en­joy.

"Be­cause from the 16, if the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate is cho­sen, that per­son goes in­to the chair which means 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors on the floor fac­ing nine in­de­pen­dent and six op­po­si­tion, so it's 15-15 in the floor," he said.

Ghany said that if the pres­i­dent were to choose Kan­ga­loo and the Gov­ern­ment were to elect Kan­ga­loo from among the nine that the Pres­i­dent se­lect­ed then that would per­mit the Gov­ern­ment to use its ma­jor­i­ty to put her as pres­i­dent of the sen­ate.

"And cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion where­by the Gov­ern­ment would have a per­ma­nent ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate, where­as now they do not en­joy such a ma­jor­i­ty," he said.

"The key to the whole thing of course is the Pres­i­dent, whether the Pres­i­dent would in­clude Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo among her nine," he said.

Ghany said he could not re­call if a Pres­i­dent ever se­lect­ed an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor that was pre­vi­ous­ly se­lect­ed by a po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

"I don't have that rec­ol­lec­tion, it does mean that that per­son is at the mer­cy of the Pres­i­dent in terms of be­ing easy to re­move be­cause the term of this of­fice of this Pres­i­dent ends in 2023, so if she is to con­tin­ue, she may de­cide to change the in­de­pen­dent bench if some­one else was cho­sen as pres­i­dent, that per­son might want to make changes to the in­de­pen­dent bench," he said.

Fel­low po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James warned against spec­u­la­tion at this point but said that he be­lieved Kan­ga­loo's stint at Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate had come to an end.

He said that he did not be­lieve that the Pres­i­dent would take po­lit­i­cal sides and se­lect Kan­ga­loo who has al­ready been a po­lit­i­cal ap­pointee.

"There are some things you shouldn't spec­u­late about," he said.

"In or­der to be­come pres­i­dent of the sen­ate, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo had to be made a sen­a­tor," he said.

James said there were three types of sen­a­tors, Gov­ern­ment, In­de­pen­dent and Op­po­si­tion but the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate acts for the Pres­i­dent when that of­fice hold­er is un­avail­able.

"It is a big job," he said.

James said he would ques­tion whether Kan­ga­loo is no longer in­ter­est­ed in the job, whether she was on­ly promised five years or whether she fell out of favour with Row­ley.

"I don't know the an­swer to those ques­tions, all I do know if that the Gov­ern­ment has not made her a sen­a­tor this term and there­fore she can­not be the Pres­i­dent (of the Sen­ate)," James said.

"That would sug­gest that some­one else would be Pres­i­dent and that per­son would come from the se­lect­ed 1 sen­a­tors and that would have to come from the Gov­ern­ment side," James said.

He said that while it was pos­si­ble that some­one from the in­de­pen­dent bench, he doubt­ed that the Gov­ern­ment would al­low that," he said.

James said that in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors tend to not go against, or vote against the Gov­ern­ment.

"It is not out­side of the realm of pos­si­bil­i­ty but it is high­ly un­like­ly," James said.

While the coun­try awaits word on the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate nom­i­nat­ed, Row­ley did con­firm that Bridgid An­nisette-George would re­turn as Speak­er of the House.

On Wednes­day, when the sen­a­tors were sworn in, Kan­ga­loo's name was ab­sent. When asked about that omis­sion, Row­ley de­murred and would not say whether there would be a new sen­ate pres­i­dent.

He promised that per­son would be named in the com­ing days.