Wade Mark is not happy with the appointment of government Senator Nigel De Freitas to Senate President.
The opposition minister said although he congratulated De Freitas following his swearing-in yesterday, he felt there should have been a “cooling-off” period from his ministerial portfolio.
Mark, in an interview with GML, said: “I find it quite unsatisfactory and disappointing that a government can take someone who is a minister, a Minister in a Ministry of Agriculture just a few hours ago, disrobe him, or rob him of his robe and just put him in the seat of an office that supposed to have certain tenets and principles, impartiality, neutrality, unbiased conduct.”
De Freitas, who has replaced Christine Kangaloo as Senate President, was elected unopposed during yesterday’s sitting of the Senate.
Mark said he is not discounting De Freitas’ ability to be unbiased but believes someone else should have been chosen for the position, especially since the Senate President acts as President whenever the holder of that office is not in the jurisdiction.
“You have a politician leaving the bench as President to go into President’s House as a result of what will take place on Friday, so you have an active, card-carrying President in charge of the highest office of the land and then you bring another active politician who was the Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture to sit as the president,” he said.
On the appointment of businessman Richie Sookhai as a Government Senator, Mark said: “We do not see Richie Sookhai as any threat to the United National Congress. We are going to bury the PNM whenever Dr Rowley calls the next general election and Sookhai or no Sookhai, it will be suck-eye.”
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