After Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir said Leader of Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) Amanza Walton-Desir’s party did not win sufficient votes in last year’s general elections to sit on parliamentary committees, Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed said she would assist We Invest in Nationhood’s (WIN) Odessa Primus, the chairman of the bipartisan parliamentary sectoral committee on foreign relations.
“I think we are still going to have her work with Ms Primus since that is her field,” Mr Mohamed told Demerara Waves Online News.
Mr Mohamed, who is also the leader of the WIN party, said although he had wanted Ms Walton-Desir to sit on the foreign relations committee, Mr Nadir ruled that her party had very few votes to make it on any committee.
“Mr Nadir mentioned, based on proportionality, she can’t make it,” he said.
While a parliamentarian for A Partnership for National Unity+Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) from 2020 to 2025, Ms Walton-Desir was the shadow foreign affairs and international cooperation minister.
WIN frontbencher Tabitha Sarabo-Halley said her party had wanted to put Ms Walton-Desir on the constitutional reform committee and the parliamentary management committee.
She said it was during nominations for the parliamentary management committee that minister of parliamentary affairs and governance Gail Teixeira and the House Speaker said that Ms Walton-Desir could not be a member because “she did not get enough votes to be on any committee.”
The FGM secured 4,332 votes in the September 1 general and regional elections.
