PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC:
FORMER ATTORNEY-General, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, has defended the position adopted by his one-time political leader, Basdeo Panday, in not relinquishing the post of Opposition Leader in Parliament to the newly elected leader of the main opposition United National Congress (UNC) Winston Dookeran.
In a three-page statement, Maharaj, who recently confirmed that he had been approached by Panday to accept a Senatorial position, said that constitutionally, morally and politically, there was no basis on which President George Maxwell Richards could remove Panday from the post.
Disgruntled UNC parliamentarians and executive members including former finance minister, Gerald Yetming, and deputy political leader Jack Warner, have called on Panday, who is now the party's chairman, to write an official letter to President Richards outlining his support for Dookeran as the new Opposition Leader in Parliament.
Yetming, who has publicly stated his non-support for Panday and has taken a "back seat" in the Parliament, said that Panday must stop using the Constitution conveniently in order to remain in the post.
NOT BISCUIT
Panday has made it clear that the Office of the Leader of the Opposition is not biscuit that he can just hand over and that President Richards is the only person who has the power to appoint the Opposition Leader.
Dookeran, who was elected unopposed as the party leader, told the media here that he is convinced that Panday does not want him to become Opposition Leader.
Warner said that Panday's days as Leader of the Opposition were numbered.
But Maharaj, who broke ranks with Panday and led to the demise of the then government, said that the issue of a revocation of the Leader of the Opposition could only arise if nine members of the current Opposition informed the President by letter of their intention to support another member for the post.
