Independent slices knife-edge vote

As the Senate extended the life of elected councillors for a year because of the postponement of this year’s local government elections, council appointees — mayors, aldermen and council chairmen and vice-chairmen — narrowly missed out on a similar benefit.

After their term expires on July 13, the councillors will hold a new selection of these appointees.

The Upper House was the scene of high drama on Thursday night.

Quite unusually, most of the Independent senators voted with the Opposition senators against the Government.

The Independents and Opposition sought to include the appointees in the one-year extension, while the Government wanted them excluded. In the end the Government prevailed.

But it was a day in which the Independents blew hot and cold. Earlier they had grumbled about the short notice of the bill given by the Government but when a vote was taken whether or not to proceed with the bill the Independents all fell into line with the Government and abandoned the Opposition.

However later all but one of the Independents voted against the Government on a UNC amendment to include mayors, aldermen, chairmen and vice-chairmen in the Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill 2006.

It was a knife-edge vote of 16-to-14, whose outcome was decided by just one person, Independent Senator Walton F James.

So, the end result is that the Senate passed the bill and only elected councillors have their term automatically extended.

The debate itself at times became sour. The bill’s pilot, Minister of Local Government Rennie Dumas, claimed the UNC senators (who are all appointed by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar) secretly backed the bill in order to remove council appointees who back UNC political leader Winston Dookeran.

Dumas even told those UNC senators present that their tenure too was not safe, addressing each senator and saying, “It’s been nice knowing you.”

UNC Senator Raziah Ahmed likened a council to a family and said that excluding its mayor is like removing the father from the family.

Dumas raised eyebrows when he admonished: “You want us to rewrite this amendment and take it back to the House of Representatives?!” At that an angry Independent Senator Mary King retorted, “Yes!”

Dumas dug himself in deeper into controversy, saying, “For once the Senate should accept the ruling of the House of Representatives.” King, in disbelief, countered, “Ruling?!”

Independent Senator Prof Ramesh Deosaran chided Dumas, saying, “The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the House of Representatives but is to be a check and balance.”

The bill was eventually passed at about 7.40 pm.