It was only after the PPP/C said it would not support Deborah Backer’s nomination as Speaker in the hours leading up to the vote that opposition coalition APNU decided that it would support Raphael Trotman as the compromise candidate, party leader David Granger has admitted.
Backer, Granger said, was APNU’s preferred nominee because of her gender, experience, training in mediation and commitment to change. “We did want a woman and she would have been the first woman Speaker of the National Assembly and we felt it was time to have a woman,” the newly minted opposition leader said.
Granger, during a recent interview with Stabroek News, said that up to the Wednesday night the opposition coalition still had its two nominees–Backer and Cammie Ramsaroop—on the table. Granger indicated that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) had also initially proposed four candidates—Basil Williams and former Deputy Speaker Clarissa Riehl being the others. Williams, Granger said, subsequently withdrew his name while Riehl’s name was withdrawn after the AFC raised an objection. Ramsaroop withdrew his nomination late that Wednesday evening, leaving Backer as the partnership’s sole nominee.
“So it was only on Thursday 12th January that we were actually down to one person. In fact, [President Donald] Ramotar called me twice; we spoke twice on Thursday morning and he asked me to support Mr [Ralph] Ramkarran and I asked him to support Mrs Backer, and we couldn’t agree,” Granger said. “The compromise candidate turned out to be Mr Trotman but we backed Mrs Debbie Backer until the last minute,” he said.
In the weeks following the declaration of the results of the November 28 polls, APNU and the Alliance For Change (AFC) had been locked in discussions about selecting a Speaker of House. The AFC initially had two nominees in its party leader Raphael Trotman and former PPP member Moses Nagamootoo. Trotman subsequently withdrew his name making Nagamootoo the party’s sole nominee.
However, after President Ramotar unexpectedly delivered the proclamation last Monday declaring the 10th Parliament opened on January 12, Trotman’s name was touted as a consensus candidate. Trotman even told Stabroek News the day before the vote that the two opposition parties had agreed that he would be Speaker.
When the elections for Speaker were held, there were initially three nominees in Ramkarran, Backer and Trotman. APNU’s Chief Whip Amna Ally, who had nominated Backer for the post, subsequently withdrew the nomination after the motion to elect Ramkarran as Speaker was defeated. Granger said Backer’s name was withdrawn because the party could not be guaranteed that she would win. It was also a tactical move Granger said. APNU then joined AFC in supporting Trotman’s nomination ensuring that he was elected as Speaker.
The initial nomination of Backer, however, appeared to surprise the AFC members. An APNU source indicated to this newspaper that the party did not inform AFC about the way they were going to deal with Backer’s nomination. The source said the nomination was made and subsequently withdrawn because APNU wanted to show that she was the party’s preferred nominee; because it was “a tidier parliamentary method” and because the party recognised the crucial importance of cementing opposition unity.
Meanwhile, Granger stood by his much debated remarks about Nagamootoo’s suitability for the post of Speaker given his close association with the ruling party during its time in office, when various atrocities by the government had been committed. Granger had pointed to Nagamootoo being a Member of Parliament and member of the PPP leadership during this period. “I have at all times put the issue of principle above that of personality…,” Granger said. “APNU could not find it acceptable to advance a candidate who up to October 2011 was sitting on the Central Committee of the PPP. As far as APNU was concerned, its supporters wanted a change from what the PPP stood for and we did not see, in any other candidate, or in that particular candidate the conviction that what the PPP had been doing over the previous 19 years had been wrong and had actually damaged this country,” he said. “It was nothing personal. The principle is that the people wanted change and the people wanted a person there who could advance a certain agenda,” APNU’s chairman said.
Granger also said “some unfortunate statements were made in the media, threatening that if APNU did not support Mr Nagamootoo then support would be sought from the PPP”. Nagamootoo had indicated this in an interview with Stabroek News.
“Well APNU made it clear that any PPP candidate would be unacceptable to our constituency after the 19 years of the PPP/C regime. It was completely out of the question. We said from the outset that we are looking for the best candidate who could manage the House during the duration of the 10th Parliament. We were looking for a man or a woman and we were looking for someone who did not have the sort of intimate links with the PPP which had, in fact, done so much damage to the country,” Granger said. He said too that APNU was looking for someone who could advance the agenda of the APNU, which the party had sold to the population. “We wanted to have a Speaker who was capable of managing the National Assembly in a way that would ensure that our policies would not be thrown out of the window,” Granger stated.
The opposition leader also denied that the APNU felt more comfortable supporting Trotman because he was a former member of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the main party within APNU. “We felt Mr Trotman had the capability to manage the Assembly in a more balanced way than Mr Ramkarran and we were convinced that he was capable of advancing the agenda… of both the AFC and the APNU, which is the majority,” Granger said.
“The Speaker of the House must not be on the side of the executive. The Speaker of the House must be on the side of the Assembly and the majority in the Assembly is held by APNU and AFC,” Granger said. According to him, because of the domination of the Speaker by the executive arm of government over the years, people feel that the Speaker should be an agent of the executive. “I don’t feel so. The Speaker must really be impartial and must stand up for the rights of the members of the House, particularly the backbenchers. He must allow people to speak, he must allow motions to be heard. It is important to understand that the majority of the voters must have their voices heard in the National Assembly. They mustn’t be silenced… the opposition must be allowed to ask questions,” Granger opined.
Granger said that while the executive arm of the government is expected to have a clear route to advancing legislation and pushing through the government agenda in the National Assembly, the opposition should be expected to have a greater say.
“… The Speaker must be almost like a judge making these decisions. He must not be a state appointee, he must be a person who can act with impartiality and intelligence to make sure the interests of the people as a whole are be respected,” Granger said.
