PM Douglas: ‘Labour Party is prepared for a general election’

St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas in the Von Rebop Studio at ZIZ Radio (Photo by Erasmus Williams)

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, MARCH 21ST 2013 (CUOPM) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas says his governing St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party is prepared for a general election if one has to be called.

“The Labour Party stands ready to be prepared for any event electorally. We are a party established since 1932. We have been in government for the last 17 years after being able to defeat a 15 year opposition regime (PAM),” said Prime Minister Douglas, who said his Party “has the confidence and the support of our people if we were to go into a General Election, if they were to be called.”

“We have made it absolutely clear the SKNLP would not lose any Motion of No Confidence in the Parliament and the Constitution gives us options which is why I am confident that we will not lose any motion of No Confidence if it comes to the vote,” Dr. Douglas said on his weekly radio programme “Ask the Prime Minister.”

“We will not lose that vote. We will not see the vote, if we believe the chances are that we will lose the vote, we will go to our options which are placed clearly in our constitution,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

Dr. Douglas said his government during any debate will be to convince them to support the Government with all of the achievements that they were apart of and maybe in areas that we did not achieve, they were also part of the non-achievement.”

“This is not a Douglas thing. It is a Government- Cabinet thing. All of us contributed to where we are. Not one more than the other,” said Dr. Douglas, adding: “this nonsense of trying to demonise the leader and blame him for everything that is not good, but taking the credit for them for whatever may have been good, is absolute hypocrisy as I’ve said in the past.”

“They (Dr. Timothy Harris and Sam Condor) have said basically that we are no longer with this Labour Party that is on its way out. They say, ‘We want to be part of this Unity Government that is on its way in.’ But I say to you…it will not get in because it is really a disunity government. It is a government of convenience, where each man having his own little personal interest wants to sit together; but we have evidence of what happens in Unity Governments,” said Dr. Douglas, pointing to examples of recent unity governments in Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago.

“Even in our own history of Unity Government here in St. Kitts and Nevis. What happened when Simmonds had joined up with (Hon. Sim) Daniel? As soon as he (Simmonds) was able to get a majority in 1984…bam…Daniel was kicked in his backside and gone,” said Prime Minister Douglas.

“The Unity Government concept does not work! It’s confusion and that is why we keep saying to our people, what is happening is, that these guys thought that the Labour Party would have fallen on 12th day of December 2012. They had dubbed it Freedom Day with PAM, but we (Labour Government) are still here by the grace of God and the support of our own people. Not only the supporters of the Labour Party, but people generally in this country are saying that’s not the way we would want this Labour government to go, having done so much, having navigated the most difficult of channels during this turbulent period from since 2008 ’til present. That’s not how we think the Labour Party should be treated at this time. That is why they people are saying them guys ungrateful,” said Prime Minister.