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For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has called on Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to im­me­di­ate­ly seek for­mal clar­i­fi­ca­tion from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over al­le­ga­tions that two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors at­tempt­ed to trade their votes for per­son­al favours dur­ing de­bate on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill.

In a state­ment, Young said the Pres­i­dent is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly em­pow­ered and oblig­ed to re­quest full de­tails of the al­le­ga­tions un­der sec­tion 81 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which re­quires the Prime Min­is­ter to keep the Pres­i­dent ful­ly in­formed on mat­ters re­lat­ing to the con­duct of gov­ern­ment.

“The Pres­i­dent, if she has not al­ready done so, must im­me­di­ate­ly write the Prime Min­is­ter pur­suant to sec­tion 81 of the Con­sti­tu­tion re­quest­ing the in­for­ma­tion sur­round­ing the al­le­ga­tions,” Young said, not­ing that In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors serve at the Pres­i­dent’s plea­sure un­der sec­tion 40(2)(c).