It is highly unlikely that there will be a by-election in the First District for the seat of the former Premier and Representative for the First District Honourable Andrew Fahie who will be made to vacate his seat at the end of the next Sitting of the House of Assembly (HOA).
This is according to Premier and Minister of Finance Dr. the Honourable Natalio Wheatley who made the disclosure at a recent press conference in response to a question posed on the subject by the media.
Premier Wheatley first sought to correct his previous statement where he said that a member would have to vacate their elected seat in the House of Assembly if they miss three consecutive sittings without the excuse of the Speaker of the House.
He said following discussions with his team, it was clarified that a member of the House would have to miss more than three-consecutive sittings before being made to vacate his or her seat.
“I was saying, first, that if you miss three consecutive sittings, the seat would be vacated, but that was not completely accurate. It’s more than three consecutive sittings, which would be four, at minimum four. So we’ll be starting the fourth sitting on Tuesday and at the conclusion of that sitting the seat will be vacated, of course, unless the member shows up, which is unlikely, or whether the Speaker excuses, but we already know what the Speaker’s position is on that,” Premier Wheatley said.
In mid-July, Speaker of the House of Assembly Corine George-Massicote rejected Fahie’s Notice of Absence for the then sitting and all future sittings of the House of Assembly.
At the time she said that the former premier cited his bail conditions as the reason why he was not able to attend the previous and future House of Assembly sittings, but said the delaying of his trial from July 18, 2022, to January 2023 weighed heavily in her decision to deny the former premier’s request.
The next sitting will have to conclude before Nov 12 to have by-election
Speaking during the recent press conference, Premier Wheatley explained that the next sitting of the House of Assembly will have to conclude by November 12, 2022 to trigger a by-election in the First District.
This he said was highly unlikely due to the vast schedule of items to be brought before the House during the next sitting, which is on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
“Under the amended Elections Act, if the House dissolves within four months of when the seat becomes vacant then you don’t have to go to a by-election and we’ll just have a general election in May. But it’s unlikely that we’ll finish before November 12th because we have some very heavy… bills on the Order Paper and a lot that we want to get accomplished before we have Budget Day. Budget Days is of course when we give the budget speech and then we have to do Standing Finance and we have to come back and have the budget debate all before the close of the year so that we can have a budget ready for January 1st. So we have to have Budget Day and we’ll have to close off the sitting so that we can do the budget. So with some of the heavy things on the Order Paper, I don’t think it’s likely that we will finish before November 12th,” Premier Wheatley explained.