³-agdeR caQQRt Ee 30 eLtKer´
)ormer President %harrat -agdeo cannot return to the government as prime minis ter P0 .
This became pellucid on Tuesday after prominent Attorney at /aw Sanjeev -. Datadin e[plained that the constitution bars anyone who is ineligible of being presi dent from being P0 as well. In an invited comment, Datadin said, “Article 1 1 subparagraph 1 of the con stitution is clear, very clear, that a person who is not eli gible to be president is simi larly not eligible to be prime minister. I thinN it would be difficult for an alternative interpretation of that article to be successful. In fact, there can be no alternative interpretation by anyone.´ Datadin pointed out that the provisions of Article 1 1, 1 maNe good sense. +e said, “I find this especially so, be cause someone who is prime minister would be reTuired to act for the president on many occasions²if the president is ill, if he leaves the country, the prime minister will au tomatically be the person to act as president. 0ore impor tantly, *od forbid something is to happen to the elected president, by operation of law, the prime minister would become the president.´ Datadin continued, “Now, if that person who is ineligible of being president is prime minister, it creates a circus of permutation as to what should and should not happen, a situ ation that is liNely to create a constitutional crisis and cre ate uncertainty in the country. So, by my reading of article 1 1, 1 of the *uyana con stitution, any person who is ineligible of being president cannot be prime minister.´ Caribbean Court of -ustice CC- on Tuesday upheld the constitutional limit on terms for heads of state in *uyana. After the ruling hit the on line press, heated discussions erupted on social media on the domino effect of the rul ing. -agdeo is the only for mer president who is alive and has served two terms before. +ence, the discussion focused on him.
*iving consideration to -agdeo¶s announcement over the weeNend and again on Tuesday, that he will return to play a formal part of any People¶s Progressive Party/ Civic PPP/C government, many on social media said that -agdeo could return as prime minister. Also, sources within the PPP/C said that this was a “consideration´ of -agdeo¶s.
)urther, Kaieteur News con tacted several persons within the PPP/C for comments. 0ost of those who answered the calls refused to comment on the record.
The only PPP/C official brave enough to go on re cord, speaNing about the rul ing and liNeliness of contest ing as presidential candidate, was former president, Don ald 5amotar.
SpeaNing on the ruling, he said, “I always thought the decision could have gone both ways. I am therefore not surprised at the decision. I thinN the process that we went through for us to change the constitution was very broad and e[tensive, and therefore I am not surprised that the de cision is what it is.´
+e said, “It is not a Tuestion of if I support it or not. I ac cept it«I do not thinN it the ruling is a bad thing.´ 5amotar only served one term as president. +is term was less than the usual five years as he was forced to call elections after he prorogued parliament to prevent the passing of a No Confidence 0otion against him.
:hen Kaieteur News asNed 5amotar if he was willing to serve as president again, he said, “That is not for me to decide, I have always been a party man, a PPP man.´ +e said that if the party de cides that it wants him to run again, “I will have to taNe it into very serious consider ation.´
(Kaieteur News)