BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, JULY 24TH 2013 (CUOPM) – The opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM), which failed to allow debate on two motions on No Confidence in the early 1980’s should have included a time frame for such to be, heard when they fashioned the Independence Constitution with Great Britain in 1983.
That’s the view of St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas, who also accused the opposition of hypocrisy in opposing the efforts to review the present constituency boundaries.
“I believe that as this discussion continues on matters pertaining to the Motion of No Confidence, it must be noted where the (Kennedy) Simmonds/PAM Administration had a Motion of No Confidence in 1983 steering them in their face. That’s why when they went to England to negotiate our Independence Constitution, there was nothing (timeframe) placed in the constitution about when a Motion of No Confidence should be brought to Parliament, as we have seen written in other constitutions in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, in Antigua and Barbuda and in Trinidad and Tobago.
They have a time when the motion must come, but here in St. Kitts and Nevis, then Kennedy Simmonds/PAM Administration having had a Motion of No Confidence in 1983 before, deliberately refused to put anything in the Constitution about when a Motion must come and now they want to kill Douglas to bring it,” Prime Minister responded to a caller.
The opposition parliamentarians who filed documents in the Court to direct the Speaker to place the Motion on the Order Paper has since withdrawn the matter from the Court, but the speaker is awaiting the Court to make several declarations.
“The Court will now say when it will come,” said Prime Minister Douglas.
The Prime Minister also noted that the Constitution calls for the revisiting of the boundaries every three to five years.
“PAM revisited the boundaries in 1983 for the elections in 1984 and then again in 1988 for the elections in 1989, but today they are saying we cannot,” he pointed out.
“We tried to do it in 2009 for the elections held in 2010. They ran to the court and tried to stop it and now Shawn is saying in New York that they will go into court again to try to stop it because we are attempting to fix the boundaries in order to prepare properly for the elections of 2015. These are jokers, political dwarfs, political infants when it comes to looking at the issues of development in the country,” said the St. Kitts and Nevus leader.