The Speaker presides over the sittings of the House and enforces the rules prescribed in the Standing Orders of the National Assembly for the orderly conduct of the Business of the House. Elected at the commencement of the First Sitting of the First Meeting of a new Assembly, the Speaker must be a Member of the National Assembly as provided for in the Constitution.
In carrying out the duties in the House, the Speaker must remain impartial and fair to all Members of the National Assembly. The Speaker regulates and enforces the rules of debate, he decides who has the right to speak and rules on a point of Order.
The Speaker acts as the representative of the House in its relations with other Parliaments and outside bodies. The Speaker also welcomes visiting dignitaries and represents Parliament at national events and during official visits abroad. The Speaker is overall in charge of the administration of Parliament and it's Secretariat.
The Speaker, Hon. Roger Mancienne is assisted by a Deputy Speaker, Hon. Gervais Henrie.
Hon. Roger Mancienne, was elected as the President of the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) at the 52nd Plenary Assembly Session and will be serving his term for two years.
Contact the Office of the Speaker
Tel: +248 428 5600
Ms. Genevieve Daniel
Director of the Office of the Speaker
gdaniel@nationalassemblysc.com
Biography of the Honorable Speaker Mancienne
Roger Mancienne was born on the island of Mahé in Seychelles on December 12, 1947. He attended the village school in Grand Anse Mahe before winning a scholarship for secondary studies at Seychelles College which he completed with Cambridge University ‘A’ levels in 1966.
He completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree at Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the USA in 1971 and a post graduate Diploma in Linguistics at Moray House College in Edinburgh, UK.
He began a career in education in 1971 in the Seychelles Ministry of Education as an English Language teacher and from 1976 to 1979 as a Curriculum Development Officer. This period saw also his engagement in national affairs, with active involvement in the Seychelles Teachers Union of which he was Chairman for 2 years and also as an official of the Seychelles Civil Servants’ Union. This career path was broken by political developments after the coup d’etat of 1977. In 1979 he was detained for his opposition to the coup and the resultant one-party regime, in particular its policies on education.
After 1979, Roger Mancienne was part of the underground opposition to the one-party regime and joined with others, including Wavel Ramkalawan, to maintain an internal opposition in defiance of the regime. During that time, he worked in the tourism and travel industry and as a language consultant, and later established and managed a printing company.
In 1991, with the change to multi-party politics in Seychelles, Roger Mancienne was a founder member of Parti Seselwa, the first opposition party to be registered under the new system. With a colleague, he founded Regar newspaper, which remained the main voice of the opposition for 20 years. In 1993, he stood as a candidate for the National Assembly elections and continued to do so for subsequent elections.
The Parti Seselwa joined with other parties in the growing opposition movement to form the Untied Opposition which later became the Seychelles National Party. Roger Mancienne served in the National Assembly for a short period as a proportionally elected member. He was a prominent member of the successive political groupings as the opposition movement fought to rid the country of the heritage of one-party dictatorship and to establish a democratic system for Seychelles.
In 2015, Roger Mancienne was the Vice-Presidential nominee for the Seychelles National Party alongside Wavel Ramkalawan as Presidential candidate. The party narrowly lost this election but went on to further consolidate the opposition with the formation of Linyon Demokratik Seselwa, LDS, which named Roger Mancienne as Party Leader, and won a majority in the National Assembly elections of 2016.
The new party used its platform in the National Assembly to strengthen the opposition to the ruling party which had maintained power since the coup d’etat and in the October 2020 General Elections scored a landslide victory, winning both the Presidency and a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly.
The Hon. Roger Mancienne was sworn in as Speaker of the new National Assembly on October 28, 2020, the culmination of a long and faithful engagement to transform Seychelles into a strong democracy.