More chief whips before

Lequay said that in his political life he had seen the Opposition benches simultaneously occupied by more than one political party, each of which had its own chief whip.

The DLP became the official Opposition by winning ten seats in 1961, but by 1964, it had divided into two parties, the DLP and Liberal Party. “Chief whip Stephen Maharaj of the majority Opposition could not exercise authority over the minority group.” The Leader of the House, Lequay added, had to relate to both groups.

Similarly, Lequay said, the DLP again divided into two factions in 1968, when Bhadase Sagan Maharaj won the seat made vacant by the absence of Rudranath Capildeo. “As Chief Whip of the DLP, I had no authority over the Bhadase faction called the Democratic Liberation Party,” Lequay said.

Yet again history repeated itself in the 1976 to 1981 Parliament, when the ULF divided itself into the Basdeo Panday and Raffique Shah factions.

“Nizam Mohammed was chief whip without authority over the Shah faction. The Leader of the House again had to relate to two factions,” Lequay told Newsday.

Lequay said there were no constitutional or parliamentary crises during the period he referred to.

Even when he was Leader of Government Business in the Senate in the NAR administration of 1986 to 1991, he said, he had successfully related to two groups on the benches opposite him — the Opposition and the Indepen-dent Senators. He said the current apparent impasse can be resolved with common sense. “In my view the controversy over the position of UNC Chief Whip is a non-issue and merely demonstrates our penchant for confusion.”