Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The spot­light will be on the Red House in Port-of-Spain on Fri­day dur­ing the launch of the 13th Par­lia­ment.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day is­sued the le­gal no­tice of the procla­ma­tion for the start of the new term of the Par­lia­ment fol­low­ing the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The elec­tion was won by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led Coali­tion of In­ter­ests head­ed by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who se­cured 26-13 vic­to­ry over the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), which was then led by Dr Kei­th Row­ley. The To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) al­so took the To­ba­go East and West seats from the PNM.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s procla­ma­tion in­volves the launch of the first ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment at 1.30 pm on Fri­day. The procla­ma­tion al­so al­lows any mem­ber, if nec­es­sary, to at­tend a sit­ting vir­tu­al­ly, while in T&T, with the pri­or ap­proval of the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.

The event will be a full cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing with pomp and pageantry ex­pect­ed.

Traf­fic is ex­pect­ed to be di­vert­ed from the blocks sur­round­ing the Red House from around mid-morn­ing.

Both the Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (HOR) will first meet in their re­spec­tive south and north Cham­bers, where the new Sen­ate Pres­i­dent and new Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will take their po­si­tions.

Mem­bers of each House will al­so take their re­spec­tive oath of of­fice - 31 in the Sen­ate and 41 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

For­mer UNC Sen­ate leader Wade Mark has re­cent­ly been tipped to be­come Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, ac­cord­ing to par­ty sources. There’s al­so been spec­u­la­tion that a very ex­pe­ri­enced se­nior per­son from the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty will be­come House Speak­er.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo - who is Com­man­der-in-Chief of the Armed Forces - will, on ar­rival at the Red House, be met by the new Speak­er and new Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

Kan­ga­loo will in­spect a guard of ho­n­our of mil­i­tary per­son­nel out­side the com­plex. Work had been on­go­ing since last week on parts of the pave­ment area to pre­pare it for the event.

Po­lit­i­cal sources said the event is ex­pect­ed to at­tract a large gath­er­ing: rel­a­tives of mem­bers of both Hous­es, lead­er­ship of the UNC and its coali­tion of part­ners, mem­bers of the diplo­mat­ic corps, the ju­di­cia­ry, for­mer pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers of Par­lia­ment, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the sev­en UNC-held re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion as well as oth­er en­ti­ties.

Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s seat on the left side of the House is ex­pect­ed to be flanked by her front­line MPs: Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness-tipped to be Cou­va North MP and Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John or Ca­roni Cen­tral MP and Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee.

UNC sources have tipped Princes Town Mr Dr Aiy­na Ali as the deputy House Speak­er.

Since the UNC Gov­ern­ment has 26 MPs, it’s ex­pect­ed that the TPP MPs - David Thomas and Joel Samp­son- may take seats on the end of the bench be­hind the Op­po­si­tion PNM.

There’s been spec­u­la­tion that the Leader of Sen­ate Busi­ness may be Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram or Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment and now Min­is­ter in Fi­nance, Kennedy Swarats­ingh.

A po­si­tion is al­so ex­pect­ed to be re­vealed for for­mer UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al.

Apart from the PNM’s 13 MPs led by Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, the par­ty’s Sen­a­tors are ex­pect­ed to in­clude for­mer min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne, de­feat­ed MPs Faris Al-Rawi, Fos­ter Cum­mings and oth­ers. Op­po­si­tion Whip is tipped to be ei­ther Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly or Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

The nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are ex­pect­ed to in­clude a hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion­al as well as oth­ers from the aca­d­e­m­ic, fi­nance/eco­nom­ics fields.

On Fri­day, sev­er­al bills will be laid in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, in­clud­ing leg­is­la­tion to re­peal the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Act, ex­pand ac­cess to the Chil­dren’s Life Fund for chil­dren with life-lim­it­ing dis­eases and oth­er laws.