BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER Hon. Sam Condor said the People’s Action Movement (PAM) and its Senator Hon. Vincent Byron made a mistake by not accepting the Deputy Speaker position.
Byron was nominated by Condor to fill that role at Wednesday’s (Mar. 10) opening Parliament session, a position the attorney-at-law quickly declined. Hon. Richard Skerritt was instead sworn in as the newest Deputy Speaker.
Skerritt abruptly resigned yesterday afternoon (Mar. 11) and was quickly reappointed as Minister of Tourism and International Transport. The Deputy Speaker position is now vacant, an option permitted by section 32 (3) of the Constitution.
Condor revealed to SKNVibes that the government would soon increase the number of senators from its current maximum of three. The Constitution dictates that there can be no more senators than two-thirds of the elected representatives, which means that maximum can only be extended to seven.
It also states that there must be a 2:1 government-opposition ratio in the allocation of senators.
PAM and the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) struck a deal prior to Parliament’s reopening that returned CCM’s Hon. Mark Brantley as Opposition Leader and gave PAM the ability to select the sole opposition senator.
Condor said he informed Byron of the nomination shortly after news hit of his impending appointment, and that even though the lawyer had declined privately, his conviction made him try again in public.
“As leader of government business, I had the responsibility of getting the best person as Deputy Speaker. I felt strongly about it and when I do, I act. [Byron] knew beforehand that I was going to nominate him. I wanted the record to show that I did,” Condor explained.
“I think PAM lost out on this one. The Leader of the Opposition is the one who chooses senators, and I think the next one will come from Nevis, so PAM has lost. We don’t know how much we will increase it to yet, but whenever we do, the opposition will have to pick up one.”
However, senior PAM Parliamentarian Hon. Shawn Richards disagreed with Condor’s perspective, stressing that his party had made no mistake by refusing the position. He argued that it was more tenable for the government to produce the Deputy Speaker as that side would forever possess the majority.
“We have three persons in Parliament representing us, and CCM has two others. The government side has seven elected representatives and two senators. They have nine persons and they can’t find someone, but the opposition which only has five must find one?
“When one is sitting in the chair, it bars you from being able to participate in debate because while you’re in charge of the House, you can’t actively contribute to the discussion. The government is in a much better position to fill the role because they have more persons.”
Richards claimed that any move by the government to increase the number of senators would be contradictory to its stated intention of lowering the national debt. He also said that PAM and CCM were still to hold discussions on where their next senator would come from.
