142/2018
By: Erasmus Williams
Basseterre, St. Kitts, February 26, 2018 – Telling thousands of Labour Party supporters Sunday night of a plot to remove him as the Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher 6, former Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, invites constituents to accompany him to a court hearing on Monday that challenges his continued eligibility to remain in the National Assembly.
“There is a concerted plan on the part of the Team Unity Government, assisted by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Michael Perkins, urged on by the Prime Minster Timothy Harris and supported by the Attorney General Vincent Byron to have me removed from our Parliament, so that I will not be able to represent you anymore,” said Douglas during the meeting in St. Paul’s, his birthplace and part of his constituency.
Dr. Douglas, who has been representing that constituency from 1989, gained 93 percent of the votes cast in the 2015 general elections.
“I have been a faithful servant of you the people,” said Dr. Douglas, who pointed to the several areas that the people in the constituency have benefited.
“You have produced a prime minister who has been in office for 20 years. You know what I have achieved for this constituency. You know how you have been empowered. You know where we came from,” said Dr. Douglas, who reminded the jubilant crowd of the days under the PAM administration of Prime Minister The Right Excellent and the Right Hon, Sir Kennedy Simmonds “said the people of St. Paul’s and other communities of the constituency should be treated like animals, build a fence and throw in grass for them to eat.”
He spoke of the several housing programmes, scholarships to study overseas in places like Cuba, the Caribbean and the United States, employment in the public where on taking office only five persons from the large constituency were employed at Government Headquarters and the infrastructural development.
Dr. Douglas pointed out that part of the strategy is to weaken his influence in the constituency by providing jobs and short-term favours.
“They are going to provide work for you. Take the work, but do not let them rob you, let them give you every red cent that you work for,” he advised.
“When they realised that Dr. Douglas has not gone anywhere, Douglas ain’t retire and Douglas is here to make sure that Labour gets back in to government, then I will hand over to the right man or the right woman,” said Dr. Douglas, who said it was evident that the government and the Speaker do not want the Labour parliamentarians to speak in the National Assembly.
He chronicled the closing of the lone police station in St. Paul’s, denying his constituents the right to proper security.
Pointing to other atrocities, Dr. Douglas accused the government of treating his constituents like second class citizens.
“You deserve to get whatever this country gets and what this government has to offer. They have excluded us and I cannot talk about it in my parliament on your behalf,” said Dr. Douglas, who added that letters have been written to the Speaker, the Governor General Sir Tapley Seaton and regional and international organisations.
He said the application to the court seeks a declaration that he is unfit to serve.
“The prime minister of Dominica has issued me with a Dominica diplomatic passport. Having a diplomatic passport does not deprive me of my right to sit in our parliament. I am not a citizen of Dominica, I never was and never applied to be and was never granted. I have never taken an oath of allegiance to a country other than this one here St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Dr. Douglas who added that he will appear in court on Monday morning (26 February).
Dr. Douglas called on his constituents to assemble at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition in the Sands Complex at 8:30 a.m. and accompany him to the Court at the Sir Lee Llewellyn Moore Judicial and Legal Complex at 9 a.m.
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