And that same power struggle in the UDP today created confusion in the Senate.
See if you can follow this one. On Friday, Leader Barrow wrote to the Governor General saying that Senator Beverly Williams would be replaced for today's meeting by temporary Senator Shary Medina Obando. This is because Williams' daughter is in the ICU. Mike Peyrefitte is also out of the country, and he was to be replaced by Franklin Kranka Polonio.
But then on Saturday, Williams attended the meeting of the Saldivar led Caucus for Change - and Barrow sent another letter to the GG, permanently removing her as Senator to be replaced by Mark O' Brien.
Well, it seems that somewhere in the mix the signals got crossed. And to compound the confusion - the Governor General is out of the country and the Cabinet Secretary Stuart Leslie is acting as GG.
Reports say the documents didn't reach his desk until yesterday afternoon - so he didn't sign the instruments of temporary appointment.
So his temporary senators were blocked from entering today's senate meeting, The leader of the opposition called for a press conference today to discuss what he calls "abhorrent" and "A mockery to democracy" since he says due process was followed to appoint the temporary senators. But, he says when it came down to the last minute, acting governor general Stuart Leslie would not sign off on the appointments.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of The Opposition
"The opposition vehemently condemns the abhorrent actions of the Cabinet Secretary for the People's United Party, Stuart Leslie, who in his acting capacity as GG refused to sign the instruments of appointment that were already in train. The opposition has a right to three senators. As we all know there are different circumstances that arise and so you have to make temporary appointments. On Friday temporary appointments were made and the letters of appointment were sent to the Governor General's office. The Governor General office responded with a good receipt and acknowledged there was no problem there was no objection or no we don't have enough time. I called the governor general's office on Monday at midday and Ms Casey confirmed that the instruments were prepared and ready to be signed and there was no problem. Then I get an email a few hours later saying that due to circumstances beyond their control the instruments would not be sent to the National Assembly. So I called Stuart Leslie and he says oh well he needs legal advice because of this and because of that and I tried to clarify the matter for him and he said he will try to get it done in the morning. And I reached out to the President of the Senate who said she would follow up to see whether or not the instruments came in and my temporary senators went to the senate and were refused to be seated saying that the acting GG refuses to sign the instruments."
"Personally I don't have anything against Mr Leslie but I take him for what he is. He is a PUP fanatic that only thinks politics. I would have liked to give him the benefit of the doubt and to think that he could rise to the occasion of professionalism and conduct himself in a manner suitable to act in that position where the head of state is supposed to be this neutral entity. Even to this day Sir Colville Young I call him sometimes and he is very careful that he doesn't want to take a picture with me because he doesn't want to be political."
We reached out to Leslie for a comment today to which he says that "It is not the practice for the office I currently represent to respond to such accusations by anyone. All I will say then is that my decision was made on sound legal advice."
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