The Native Iowan

what is the Speaker’s seat worth…

THE next question people are asking is who is going to lead the country for the next four years.

And from that, people are interested to know when the second election (election of PM) will be held.

It is still not clear at this stage but the parliament will have to meet and elect the new speaker first.

Asked how long it will take before a new prime minister is elected, caretaker Prime MInister Dr Derick Sikua said they will need to elect a speaker first.

“At this stage, we have to get parliament to come and elect the speaker, and once that is done we can then have parliament to set the date for the election of the Prime Minister and that will take about two weeks.

“So it will be a long process to get to the time, talking about another three to four weeks,” Dr Sikua said.

The election of a new speaker will be necessary because the incumbent Sir Peter Kenilorea is retiring.

The deputy speaker Clement Kengava has also lost his parliamentary seat.

Dr Sikua said they have a few options.

“We have a few options to consider, certainly the former deputy speaker who unfortunately lost his seat will be one of our candidates but the coalition will consider other people that we want to occupy the speaker’s position.

“But at this stage I have no one in mind but there are two or three well qualified people that can occupy that position.”

Meanwhile, he said coming to a conclusion as to who will lead the next government is not an easy task.

“It’s usually not an easy compromise to arrive at in any coalition.

“There will be a lot of discussions and it will take a lot of thinking but I hope at the end of the day the best for all of us will come out as to who we decided to put in, but it will take us a good two weeks.”