MP-elect Daryl Vaz scrolls through his smartphone in Parliament's well Tuesday. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

DARYL VAZ returned to Gordon House Tuesday, but the usually vocal man had to keep quiet as he is still not officially back in the parliamentary fold.

Vaz came up a resounding victor in the West Portland by-election Monday but will not be sworn in until next Tuesday.

He was first elected in September 2007, but was disqualified after the court ruled that he was not eligible to sit in the House because he had pledged allegiance to a foreign power.

The JLP member then relinquished his United States citizenship and contested the by-election against the People's National Party (PNP) Kennetn Rowe, whom he grubbed 7,915 to 5,626.

However, Vaz was not to be left out of the action on Tuesday. As he walked into the well - an area for former members - JLP members pounded the benches in approval.

Vaz grinned and signalled to the Opposition PNP to show respect by way of a standing ovation.

None of them moved.

But it was not only the Vaz show. Government members James Robertson and Robert Montague taunted the Opposition, especially party president Portia Simpson Miller and General Secretary Peter Bunting.

'Heckle' and 'Jeckle'

Robertson was the first to heckle Simpson Miller when she arrived nearly 40 minutes late for the sitting.

"Where is Rowe?" Robertson asked, to which Simpson Miller responded with characteristic sotto-voce repartee, "Yuh fi stop buy vote."

However, that would not stop Robertson and Montague, who seized every opportunity to rub the Opposition leader the wrong way about Monday's electoral demolition.

"... That's three that you have lost and is five love you going to get," Montague jeered.

Along with Robertson, they consistently told former PNP vice-president Dr Peter Phillips that it was time again to arise and renew.

"Resignation three months' time," Robertson said, while looking at a stoned-face Simpson Miller.

Phillips unsuccessfully challenged the leadership of Simpson Miller in September last year. Hardly a moment passed during the sitting Tuesday that government MPs, in schoolboyish humour, did not address him as PNP president or the president-in-waiting.

Meanwhile, the heckling duo of Montague and Robertson did not spare Bunting. They jeered that he would quit his party post at next Monday's meeting of the PNP's executive.

Montague asked East Hanover MP D.K. Duncan if he would be interested and got a grin as a response.

Luther Buchanan, the party's deputy general secretary who was Rowe's campaign manager, was Montague's next pick.

"What about you, country man?" Montague asked of Buchanan.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com