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Senator Salas Takes His Seat
posted (January 30, 2017)
And as you saw in today's debate, the 13th Senator fit right in. That's NGO Senator Osmany Salas, he took his oath of office and his place amongst the three other social partners at today's session. It's a historic shift, because his presence makes it so that there are now 7 Senators who are not aligned with the government, compared to only 6 senators for the government.

So the balance of power in the Upper House now pivots on the unaligned social partners, and Salas told his colleagues that he means business:...

Hon. Osmany Salas - Senator for NGO Community
"I pledge to do my utmost best to represent the community and to work towards the sustainable human development and the development of our country for the betterment of our country. I also acknowledge the work and the support from the opposition, for supporting the work of the teacher and their efforts and last but certainly not least than you to our Prime Minster for after a long wait, finally decided to listen to the cries of the teachers and to sign the commence order to ensure that today would also come. So I appreciate that on behalf of the NGO community."

Hon. Steven Duncan - UDP Senator
"The introduction of a 13th senator now requires that we have greater transparency even more so than before because of the possibility that the 2 major political parties will be vying for the attention of the other individual senators and will probably will be making attempts to woe in order to gain a majority in the vote."

Hon. Eamon Courtenay - PUP Senator
"It is of course incumbent on me to record the fact that this has been long overdue. It is interesting to listen to Senator Duncan justifying his presence in this chamber being an oversight chamber. It begs the question why the delay. We have no explanation for that, but the important this is that he is here now and can assure you senator Salas and other members, other senators on the non-government side that there will be no attempt from this side to bring anything type of corruption into this chamber. We propose to make our arguments on the bases of merit and to seek to convince all the senators including the government side to our position."

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