Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The “cur­tain” came down on the fourth ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, with UNC MPs Rod­ney Charles and Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne be­ing shift­ed from their seats close to par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and “pelt­ed” low­er down the Op­po­si­tion bench, close to their three col­leagues in MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots team.

The five “UP” MPs now all sit to­geth­er.

Na­pari­ma MP Charles was shift­ed from Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s left to the third to last seat down the front bench. Tabaquite MP Haynes-Al­leyne was shift­ed from her seat be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the fifth to last seat.

The sit­u­a­tion was re­vealed when the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ fourth ses­sion of the 12th Par­lia­ment re­sumed yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Par­lia­ment’s an­nu­al re­cess.

Af­ter re­ports were laid, ques­tions an­swered and oth­er mat­ters, Gov­ern­ment’s HOR leader Camille Robin­son-Reg­is an­nounced the House would ad­journ to a date to be fixed.

It’s ex­pect­ed that the fourth ses­sion will be pro­rogued at mid­night tonight (Tue). The fifth and fi­nal ses­sion of the term be­gins Fri­day.

How­ev­er, even be­fore yes­ter­day’s sit­ting be­gan, the Op­po­si­tion’s seat­ing changes - par­tic­u­lar­ly Charles’ - were the cen­tre of loud pi­cong and ex­cla­ma­tions by Gov­ern­ment MPs, in­clud­ing act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les, when they saw the UNC name plates shift­ed.

Young was sit­ting in the Prime Min­is­ter’s seat. Re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed Min­is­ter in Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land’s seat on the Gov­ern­ment back­bench was al­so moved up one seat.

But the at­ten­tion was all on the Op­po­si­tion bench. While the UNC’s front­bench fea­tures MPs loy­al to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the five seats low­est down the bench now fea­ture Haynes-Al­leyne, Paray, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Charles and Dr Rai Rag­bir.

All five sup­port­ed Paray’s UP team which un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Stars slate in UNC’s June ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion. Both sides were bit­ter­ly crit­i­cal of each oth­er dur­ing the in­ter­nal cam­paign.

Rag­bir sub­se­quent­ly broke ranks and vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment on the Whistle­blow­er Bill. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said he’d have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plain his ac­tions but that hasn’t arisen yet.

Fol­low­ing Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Charles, com­ment­ing on the shift away from Per­sad- Bisses­sar, said, “I’m, in fact, very much amused. At 75, it mat­ters less where I sit in Par­lia­ment and more im­por­tant­ly about the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of hon­esty, in­tegri­ty and in­cor­rupt­ibil­i­ty. Life goes on.”

Paray said, “These seat­ing changes have no bear­ing on my work. I’ve al­ways main­tained that where you stand on crit­i­cal is­sues mat­ters far more than where you phys­i­cal­ly sit in Par­lia­ment.

“The con­sol­i­da­tion of the four MPs who ad­vo­cat­ed for a stronger UNC is a bold state­ment, and it promis­es to el­e­vate the qual­i­ty of par­lia­men­tary de­bates. The re­al, hard-hit­ting busi­ness of Par­lia­ment has shift­ed de­ci­sive­ly to the south­ern front bench. Watch close­ly!”

On whether UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tion bat­tle caused the is­sue, Paray said, “Any sug­ges­tion of reper­cus­sions from the UP cam­paign is ut­ter­ly mis­placed. What we’re wit­ness­ing is the par­ty’s nec­es­sary re­align­ment to the mod­ern po­lit­i­cal land­scape. As New­ton’s Third Law states: for every ac­tion, there is an equal and op­po­site re­ac­tion. This is sim­ply the nat­ur­al course of things.”

Rag­bir added, “It’s an ex­treme priv­i­lege for me to sit next to col­leagues whose in­tegri­ty I ad­mire. We’re rep­re­sent­ing the best ver­sion of the UNC. I’m com­mit­ted to T&T’s fu­ture work­ing with all my col­leagues for the na­tion’s ben­e­fit.” Haynes-Al­leyne said, “It’s more im­por­tant to me where I stand on is­sues that im­pact T&T’s de­vel­op­ment than where I sit.

Ram­bal­ly said on this oc­ca­sion, he hadn’t been moved.

“I’m hap­py on a par­tic­u­lar lev­el that my four col­leagues are seat­ed equal­ly on ei­ther side, as they stand for moral­i­ty, prin­ci­ples and putting coun­try first. But what mat­ters to me is the abil­i­ty to put peo­ple and coun­try first. I’m ex­treme­ly con­cerned about crime lev­els, along with oth­er is­sues and I’ll con­tin­ue to work to­wards bet­ter­ment for our peo­ple.”

Mooni­lal clos­er to Kam­la....

Per­sad-Bisses­sar wasn’t present in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day. Guardian Me­dia was told that seat al­lo­ca­tion was the pre­rog­a­tive of the leader and Chief Whip David Lee. He didn’t re­ply to queries on whether the changes had to do with the in­ter­nal elec­tion and the MPs’ state­ments.

How­ev­er, UNC of­fi­cials said in the in­ter­nal elec­tion, the five “had fought their own mem­bers in a most atro­cious way - full be­tray­al of leader and col­leagues. Ad­just­ment of seats is re­flec­tive of how mem­bers re­ject­ed them in the in­ter­nal polls and how low the par­ty sees them in terms of rel­e­vance,”

As a re­sult of the changes, Per­sad-Bisses­sar now has MP Kadi­jah Ameen at her left - in­stead of Charles - and Lee at her right. UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal’s seat has been shift­ed fur­ther up the front row and is next to Ameen - one seat down from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.