By Sue-Ann Wayow
USING the Constitution, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley defends Government’s decision to have Senate President Christine Kangaloo become the next President of Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking at press conference on Monday, he said, Kangaloo had been nominated by all Government Members of Parliament that day as Government has a January 10 deadline.
Dr Rowley spoke at length about the Constitution that he said makes way for Kangaloo, a former member of the People’s National Movement (PNM), to take up the highest position in the country despite whatever the Opposition may otherwise want the population to believe.
Targeting Wade Mark, he said ,the Opposition Senator was out of place in his comments concerning Kangaloo.
“He has the unmitigated gall to appoint himself teacher of the nation today on Constitution and laying out for us, what should happen in an office of that nature and casting aspersions of one of the most decent and well brought up public officers with a record to prove it,” Dr Rowley said.
Going back in history to when Authur NR Robinson was appointed President, a decision he then disagreed with, he said he cast his secret ballot in the Parliament as per the Constitution.
“Today, I have the moral authority to say that the Constitution makes provision for that and my position all along has been that way,” Dr Rowley said.
Agreeing that some may not be pleased with the decision, he said at least the majority may be satisfied.
Giving other historical accounts of persons selected for high offices, Dr Rowley said, “I will not sit idly by and allow Wade Mark, the head of the UNC who have made some of the strangest appointments in the Houses of Parliament to come here and mislead the population that something is wrong constitutionally with the matter we are engaged in.”
In his announcement that Kangaloo was the Government’s choice last Friday, Dr Rowley said upon being elected, she will have to vacate her seat as Senate President as constitutionally stated.
He added, “We have a record of decades. We have a record where those persons from the PNM from Matthew Ramcharan coming forward, once they were identified in that post of Speaker or Senate Leader, Wahid Ali and others, they never functioned in the PNM again. They immediately withdrew. Some people even resigned from the PNM when they got to those positions. That is what this country has under the legacy of the PNM.”
The Prime Minister said the presidential nomination was being done according to the Constitution and was proceeding “smoothly.”
Dr Rowley said, “The Government having looked across the population, came up with a nominee, a very experienced nominee which I daresay has found favour with a wide cross-section of the population and the Government stands by that.”
He added that Government has a “good idea” of who will be her replacement in the Senate.
On January 20, parliamentarians will vote via secret ballot for the new President he stated and whoever gets the majority of the votes will ultimately be the seventh President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Opposition has nominated senior counsel Israel Khan for president.
And unlike his praises for Kangaloo, Dr Rowley had little for Khan who he said served on several political parties and vilified him personally.
