Read the passages below and answer the questions that follow: Every discernible observer could foresee the crisis which engulfed the Edo House last week. Only a few days before, reports were rife about the AC reaching out to some PDP legislators to cross-carpet. The intention being to gain a majority and then assume the Speakership with the least constraint. Zakawanu Garuba, the then Speaker, retorted with a fiat, threatening to declare vacant the seat of any defector. This in spite of the constitutional support for such action, as evidenced, for example, by the crisis that has torn the PDP apart in Edo State. The party has two factional chairmen in the state, even though one is more vociferous.
The desperate attempt by Garuba to cling to the Speaker's chair is condemnable. He was not being recalled from the legislature; and so, he still has his seat as a floor member. As speaker, he was only first among equals. The Speakership is not his birthright. With the defection of one PDP lawmaker to the AC, the legislature reconvened hours after the bloodbath and elected a protem Speaker, while impeaching and suspending Garuba and a few others. They are to be probed
(Adapted from The Guardian, Thursday, March 4, 2011, p.14)
To cross-carpet, as used in the passage, means to ____________
A. change party B. renew membership of a party C. change one's carpet D. buy new carpet
