MARK STEPS IN AGAIN

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

He did it again.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark again cast his de­cid­ing vote last night in a chaot­ic end­ing to se­cure pas­sage of Gov­ern­ment’s Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Amend­ment Bill.

This was amid a 15-15 tie of Gov­ern­ment votes for the bill and com­bined 15 Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent votes against it.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors called for Mark’s rea­sons - but he stood by what he had said last Thurs­day when he had al­so cast his vote to as­sist pas­sage of Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill amid a 15-15 tie there al­so.

Last night, the re­peat arose in the Sen­ate just be­fore 9 pm when the vote was tak­en on the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Amend­ment Bill 2026.

All 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors vot­ed for the bill.

All six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors vot­ed against it. As did all nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

When the tie was an­nounced, Mark an­nounced there was an equal­i­ty of votes.

“Un­der Sec­tion 50 (4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion and 59 of the Con­sti­tu­tion 54 of the Stand­ing Or­ders, if I have those sec­tions cor­rect­ly, I’m re­quired to ex­er­cise a cast­ing vote,” he told the cham­ber.

“I ex­er­cise the cast­ing vote in favour of the Ayes. So we’re now 16 for and 15 against - the bill is passed,” he de­clared to Gov­ern­ment desk-thump­ing ap­proval.

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, cit­ing the Stand­ing Or­ders, called for Mark’s rea­sons.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dar­rell Al­la­har, how­ev­er, was at the same time at­tempt­ing to move a mo­tion to ad­journ.

Mark replied, “My rea­sons re­main as con­stant as the North­ern Star ... Lis­ten, lis­ten, lis­ten. The Stand­ing Or­der is very clear - I don’t have to give a rea­son - I don’t have to give a rea­son! The Stand­ing Or­ders is very clear and be­cause Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi has asked the ques­tion, I’ve said again, be­cause of my last cast­ing vote, there’s no set­tled prac­tice as it re­lates to this ques­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders ...am... the cast­ing vote, rather, in re­spect of the sta­tus quo. That is my rea­son.”

Al-Rawi at­tempt­ed again.

But Mark told the Clerk of the Sen­ate to read the bill’s ti­tle (in­di­cat­ing the bill was passed) and told Al-Rawi, “No, I’ve giv­en my rea­son ... can you read the long ti­tle, clerk.”

Op­po­si­tion PNM Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne asked if Mark would give a com­mit­ment to cir­cu­late his re­search and rea­sons on the mat­ter to sen­a­tors. Mark said Browne had writ­ten him on that but didn’t go fur­ther than again ask­ing the clerk to read the bill’s ti­tle. Oth­er PNM sen­a­tors then protest­ed.

The clerk then read the bill’s ti­tle, though an­oth­er PNM sen­a­tor still at­tempt­ed to speak on the mat­ter. Al­la­har, who was stand­ing, said both couldn’t stand to­geth­er. Mark or­dered her to take her seat.

Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers then clashed, with Mark call­ing on them re­peat­ed­ly, “Hel­lo, hel­lo, hel­lo - every­one take their seat, every­one take their seat!”

Mark called for Al­la­har to speak.

Al­la­har said the Sen­ate would ad­journ to Fri­day, but PNM sen­a­tors again protest­ed, with Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors or­der­ing them to “Sit down!”

Al-Rawi said they could not tell him that - all the while with Al­la­har in­sist­ing he was seek­ing to be heard.

Mark said he had an­swered the Op­po­si­tion’s ques­tions al­ready.

“If any­one con­tin­ues to de­fy the chair, I’ve ruled. I’ve called on the Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness, please Leader of Op­po­si­tion Busi­ness - sor­ry, the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, I beg your par­don,” Mark said.

Al­la­har said the Sen­ate would meet at 10.30 am Fri­day on the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling Bill to in­crease the age for us­age and par­tic­i­pa­tion in such pur­suits. This is sub­ject to its pass­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row (Wednes­day).

The bill had re­quired a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote - Gov­ern­ment’s 15 votes plus one more vote.

It had been passed in the Low­er House last week with the sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty al­so - but the Gov­ern­ment holds the ma­jor­i­ty—28 seats—in the House.