(Reuters) – In a packed bar in Nicaragua’s capital, Managua, on Friday night, more than 1,000 people gathered to see a group of drag queens battle it out to snatch the crown for best performance while representing several Central American countries.

The Mix Imperial Central American Tropical Drag Royale provided a stage for drag performers in a region where LGBT people often face discrimination and economic hardship. “It’s a form of catharsis,” said Alexa Evangelista, a drag queen from El Salvador and one of the night’s performers, who lip-synched and danced for the adoring crowd.

A jury of the three finalists from the Royale’s first edition in 2019 crowned the winner, taking in to account the audience’s support.
“This type of platform gives visibility to queer artists that we don’t have in our countries in Central America, where we lack institutional and government support,” Evangelista said. Drag queen Peppe Pig said the pageant gave her the opportunity to travel outside her home country of Guatemala, and that drag has helped her meet new friends and her current partner.
“Drag has really opened so many doors.”
Nicaraguan drag queen Akeyra Davenport took home the night’s crown in her first competition after 11 years as a drag artist.
“It gives me the initiative to keep moving forward, to continue pursuing one of many dreams that have left me behind,” she said.

Kamla against recalling Parliament to amend procurement law
(Trinidad Guardian) – Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is not in favour of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley reconvening Parliament next Wednesday to amend the procurement law.
Responding to Dr Rowley’s statement that he instructed Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives Camille Robinson-Regis to recall Parliament next Wednesday, Persad-Bissessar said only Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George has that authority.

She said if Robinson-Regis sends her a notice to attend Parliament, she will not go. Rowley told supporters at a People’s National Movement (PNM) Local Government Elections meeting in Tunapuna on Thursday that the sitting was to make sensible amendments to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Property Procurement Act to function in the people’s interest.
Rowley said the Government realised there were errors in the law. “We have to run Government ahead, and so I have instructed the leader of government business to recall Parliament next Wednesday,” Rowley said.

In a media conference at her Siparia constituency office, Penal, yesterday, Persad-Bissessar said that under the Standing Orders Parliament was in a fixed recess from the first week of July to the first week of September. Therefore, Standing Orders 13 states that the Government must satisfy Annisette-George of the necessity of an extraordinary sitting of Parliament.
She said, however, the Government should have no difficulty convincing Annisette-George.

“You cannot instruct Camille to summon the Parliament. If Camille sends me a notice to come to Parliament, I am not going. She has no power to summon a sitting of the House of Representatives, nor does the Senate President have the jurisdiction to get the senators to attend,” Persad-Bissessar said.
Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal told Guardian Media that Opposition MPs will follow Persad-Bissessar’s lead if she decides not to attend Parliament.

Moonilal said Persad-Bissessar speaks on behalf of the Opposition, and all UNC members share her view that Rowley’s plans are a complete disruption of the parliamentary process. As a member of the Standing Orders Committee who drafted the new procedures in 2015, he said it was clear that the Speaker convenes Parliament.

“The political leader was spot on,” Moonilal said. Persad-Bissessar said the Genesis of the controversy regarding public procurement was illegal actions the Government committed when it issued legal notices 206 and 164, which granted a three-month exemption for the provision of services for events associated with the Caricom Heads of Government Summit held in T&T last week and the Judiciary.

Attorneys for political activist Ravi Balgobin issued pre-action protocol letters to Attorney General Reginald Armour and Minister of Finance Colm Imbert this week regarding an interpretation claim, asserting the notices were unlawful, null and void, and of no legal effect.
Persad-Bissessar, who leads the legal team, said the letters gave the Government up to 4 pm yesterday to respond, but it was scrambling to go to Parliament to override the court process. She said only the court could nullify or uphold the legal notices.
Persad-Bissessar accused the Government of consistently breaking the law, saying these infractions pertained to the August 14 Local Government Elections. She said the Government began last year when it erroneously applied the law to postpone the elections.

While Persad-Bissessar said that she did not know what amendments the Government wanted to bring, she expected it would be to clean up the mess it made by issuing legal notices.
“We caught them, in a sense, with their hands in the cookie jar. By these two legal notices, they were saying: ‘Look, the Minister of Finance will just exempt certain services for the use of foreign people coming here and no application to the procurement law. Having been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, they now want to come to make law so they can put their hands deeper down inside the cookie jar.’”

Persad-Bissessar questioned whether the exemptions were to help fund the PNM’s election campaign. She said this system means people will not know the payees and the amounts they receive.
“And this is to pay contractors. Will there be bribes to contractors in terms of contracts given, exempting their services from procurement legislation, then the kickbacks from that go into funding Balisier House? Up to now, no one can explain to me or any right-thinking rational person in this country how you are building a $100 million Balisier House and you do that by raffling two cars?”

The Opposition Leader said they realised that the Government should not have issued an order without coming to Parliament, calling it a fundamental change in the purpose of the procurement legislation.
She said the public was unaware of how the Government spent public funds and which contractors supplied goods and services. The exemptions for the Judiciary, she said, came like a thief in the night at a time when there were close relationships between the Government and close relatives of members. She said that two judges had to recuse themselves from cases involving a husband and a brother recently.

If at any time when the House stands adjourned pursuant to its own order, the Speaker is satisfied that there is an urgent necessity for the House to meet upon a day earlier than the day to which the House stands adjourned, he may, subject to the provisions of paragraph (2) of this Standing Order, direct the Clerk to summon a meeting of the House for such time and on such day, whether Friday or otherwise, as the Speaker may determine.”

Every direction under paragraph (1) of this Standing Order shall be in writing and shall be signed by the Speaker and shall bear the date upon which it is given to the Clerk and shall specify the business to be transacted at the meeting to which it relates. (3) Immediately upon receipt of any direction under paragraph (2) of this Standing Order, the Clerk shall inform every Member of the House, personally, if practicable, of the day and hour appointed by the Speaker for the holding of the extraordinary Sitting of the House and of the business to be transacted at such sitting. (4) Except by leave of the House, no business other than the business specified in the direction under paragraph (2) of this Standing Order shall be transacted at any extraordinary sitting of the House. At the conclusion of the business, unless the House has otherwise decided, the House shall stand adjourned without question being put to the day to which it had originally been adjourned at its last sitting.