Gail Alexan­der

Pres­i­dent’s House could be­come the new Bal­isi­er House, claims UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark who’s con­cerned about the im­par­tial­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo in du­ties—in­clud­ing ap­point­ing Elec­tion and Bound­aries com­mis­sion­ers.

Mark aired his views at Sun­day’s UNC’s me­dia brief­ing on Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent.

The UNC has dis­agreed with the choice of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo due to her be­ing an ac­tive politi­cian. UNC’s asked Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan for the post. Ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley of “naked hypocrisy” on the nom­i­na­tion, Mark not­ed a 2013 Ex­press ar­ti­cle where Row­ley, as Op­po­si­tion Leader, had said (the then) PNM Op­po­si­tion would not sup­port any mem­ber of Par­lia­ment or any Cab­i­net mem­ber for Pres­i­dent. It al­so quot­ed then PNM Whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald as say­ing the PNM wouldn’t sup­port a sit­ting Par­lia­men­tar­i­an for Pres­i­dent.

“So is Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo stand­ing or ly­ing down!?” Mark asked.

Not­ing that the elec­tion of a Pres­i­dent re­quires on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote, Mark said cred­i­bil­i­ty is par­tic­u­lar­ly im­por­tant for the of­fice of Pres­i­dent and any of­fice hold­er.

Al­so ex­press­ing con­cern about im­par­tial­i­ty “ver­sus the ob­scen­i­ty we’re ex­pe­ri­enc­ing”, Mark added, “If we’re not care­ful, the Pres­i­dent’s House could be­come the new Bal­isi­er House...we have our own ‘Pa­pa Doc’ who’s about to hoist on Pres­i­dent’s House the Balis­er flag.”

Mark claimed rights, free­doms and even the abil­i­ty to hold free, fair elec­tions were en­dan­gered with the choice of Kan­ga­loo.

He added, “Who­ev­er’s in that of­fice has to ex­er­cise cer­tain au­thor­i­ty with a de­gree of im­par­tial­i­ty, free of po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ences, non-par­ti­san and not be dic­tat­ed to by ex­tra­ne­ous cir­cum­stances.”

“Can we say this will hap­pen un­der an ac­tive politi­cian like Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo?...Can we be as­sured of fair­ness, im­par­tial­i­ty, in­de­pen­dence, un­bi­as­ness with this card-car­ry­ing mem­ber of the rul­ing par­ty, a PNM acolyte and apos­tle?”

“Con­sid­er the im­pli­ca­tions of ap­point­ing an ac­tive politi­cian from among the PNM...,” Mark said, cit­ing Pres­i­den­tial du­ties.

Not­ing these in­clud­ed ap­point­ing EBC com­mis­sion­ers, he asked “Will T&T have free, fair elec­tions un­der her?”

“She’ll al­so ap­point the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Law Re­form Com­mis­sion—will we see these in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions be­com­ing PNM par­ty branch­es?”

Mark not­ed a Pres­i­dent ap­points the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. He queried if one could pre­dict if four In­de­pen­dents might be PNM mem­bers, since four In­de­pen­dent votes are need­ed to pass spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty laws.

He not­ed a Pres­i­dent ap­points a Chief Jus­tice. “What would hap­pen if a PNM Pres­i­dent had the pow­er to ap­point a Chief Jus­tice when peo­ple al­ready say the ju­di­cia­ry is hi­jacked by the PNM,” he ques­tioned.

Cit­ing the court judg­ment in favour of for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jawala Ram­baran, Mark asked if Kan­ga­loo, as act­ing Pres­i­dent, then didn’t analyse the doc­u­ment for Cab­i­net’s de­ci­sion for Ram­baran’s dis­missal. He ac­cused her of be­ing “A Yes Woman! A rub­ber stamp! A Pup­pet!”

He said Kan­ga­loo didn’t con­sid­er re­serv­ing her po­si­tion on the Ram­baran is­sue un­til the Pres­i­dent re­turned and any­one in her po­si­tion would have re­signed af­ter the court judg­ment.

He queried if she did that as act­ing Pres­i­dent, “what she would do as Pres­i­dent” un­til 2028.

Mark said Row­ley “should do the ho­n­ourable thing” and with­draw Kan­ga­loo’s nom­i­na­tion, es­pe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing the court’s ver­dict in favour of Ram­baran.

Mark added, “We have to get ready for an epic bat­tle against a dic­ta­tor, T&T might have to go to war, a peo­ple’s war...we’ll fight and march and do the nec­es­sary to en­sure T&T nev­er turns in­to (Er­ic) Gairy’s Grena­da or (Forbes’) Burn­ham’s Guyana.”