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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Dame Carol is lone opposition member

By SHIRLYN BELDEN

DAME Carol Kidu has disassociated herself from the Somare camp and offered to take up the position of opposition leader in parliament, The National reports.
Dame Carol, the member for Moresby South and only female parliamentarian, requested in a letter to deputy speaker Francis Marus and clerk Don Pandan that she be allocated a seat in the opposition benches and assume the opposition leadership up to the next parliament sitting on Feb 14.
The Jan 27 letter was addressed to Speaker Jeffery Nape who has yet to reply. 
She assumed herself leader of the opposition as she was the only MP in the Somare camp who had attended parliament since the start of the political impasse in August last year.
“I have become increasingly concerned about the vacuum in the opposition that has resulted from the timeframe necessary for court deliberations on various references and applications made to the judiciary by both factions.”
 Dame Carol said as a parliamentarian and coalition partner, she was taking up the role of presenting the other voice – “something from the Opposition to get bipartisan views on matters debated on the floor of parliament”.
She would stay away from both factions in regards meetings or
coalitions to back the military intervention in politics.
“I have disassociated myself from the Somare faction – because of my discomfort about the press statements made regarding the recent military interventions into the political scenario,” she told reporters yesterday at Parliament House.
While she is a strong supporter of Sir Michael Somare, Dame Carol said she was not part of any cabinet meeting (in the Somare faction) that endorsed the military mutiny – if media reports on that were true.
“If these media statements are correct, I wish to make it clear that I was not present in any such meetings and I disassociate myself from active participation of both factions in the on-going political impasse,” she said

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