By Eugene Wade
(Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 17, 2013) The late Lee Llewellyn Moore, then-Leader of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, filed a Motion of No Confidence against the Simmonds-led Government of the People’s Action Movement in July 1981.
Mr. Moore did this in the St. Kitts-Nevis National Assembly, in his capacity as Leader of the Opposition.
The then-Speaker, Mr. Herman Liburd, refused to bring the measure to the floor. And neither Premier Simmonds, his fellow-PAM parliamentarians, nor the Peoples Action Movement demanded that this be done “in the interest of good governance”.Indeed, the Speaker and the Simmonds Administration resisted Mr. Moore and his Motion of No Confidence for twelve months – an entire year. And the same national organizations which today claim to be defenders of truth, goodness, and democracy remained utterly silent.
The Labour Government’s most vocal opponents today claim that the Motion of No Confidence filed by Opposition Leader Honorable Mark Brantley is “a first” in our Nation’s history. This is patently false.AndOpposition expressions of “horror” that this Motion has not been brought to the floor “after four months” – in light of the Assembly’s non-response during the Simmonds Administration – are hypocritical to the extreme.The people of St. Kitts & Nevis are keenly aware that some of the loudest critics of Speaker Martin and the Labour Administration today, were among the most determined resisters of Labour’sMotion of No confidence back then.
The people cannot be fooled.