It should not surprise anyone but it certainly is interesting to note that before the political career of Lindsay “Baby” Grant has gotten off the ground it seems to be crashing to a thunderous halt.
This past week has all but signalled the death knell for the political career of a hand picked leader who try as he might does not seem to have the ability to right the ship either for his sinking party or for himself.
When Loser Lindsay first came on to the political scene by means of a political coup over his more deserving and politically tested deputy he spouted all the rhetoric that is to be expected of someone new to the political fray.
He spoke about changing the political climate, bringing transparency and accountability into the political arena, and most importantly providing responsible opposition in promising not to oppose for the mere sake of opposition.
By any and all accounts he has been a dismal failure in every department that he claimed to want to change.
Firstly he broke his promise to change the political climate and culture and change the level of debate. Time and time again Mr. Grant has done nothing more than try to politicise each and every national issue and turn it into a political opportunity.
Like his political predecessor, his lack of political ideology has seen this power-hungry politician his discredited party drift from issue to issue without any rhyme or reason.
From his party’s flip flop on the issue of crime, whereby on the one hand they seem to be urging their supporters to use violence to overthrow the lawfully elected Labour Party Government, to their encouraging criminals to continue in their actions. When it is Labour Party supporters who are the victims PAM has shown blatant disregard for responsible opposition.
In the area of transparency and accountability Mr. Grant has shown an inability to lead the members of his party much less lead an entire nation.
When the hierarchy of PAM decided that Mr. Grant would be their next token leader he attempted to disclose his assets to the nation and also promised to have all his party’s candidates do the same.
Three years later the Federation is still waiting to see if Mr. Grant was serious about changing the political landscape or whether he was just trying to score political points.
Rather than raise the level of political debate Loser Lindsay and his party’s mouthpiece (the Democrat) have embarked on a campaign of libel and misinformation that has resulted in judgments against the Democrat - the amount to over half a million dollars with many more still pending.
Under Loser Lindsay responsible opposition has meant having his party abstain for contributing to the national debate on issues of electoral reform. It has also seen PAM criticise decisions of the legal courts and findings of independent committees set up to make important decisions just because they differed from the position PAM would have liked to put forward.
At its best Mr. Grant’s leadership has shown a deliberate attempt to mislead the voting public, at worst he has shown that he is willing to say and do anything to gain and achieve political power.
But all his past misgivings aside, this week showed Mr. Grant at his lowest. While one could see their way clear to forgive a lay man for the comments made by Mr. Grant in defending his illegal and unconstitutional contesting in the 2004 general elections, such comments when coming from a person trained in the law, must be seen as down right disingenuous and deceptive.
The constitution of this Federation precludes any one who has sworn allegiance to a foreign state or power from contesting in general elections. Distinctions are drawn between the way various Countries allow persons to become citizens.
The oath taken by most Commonwealth countries allows and caters for persons to be dual citizens. The position with the oath of allegiance taken by persons who want to be United States citizens is somewhat different as the general position is that the United States in not in favour of persons who holds it citizenship being citizens of other countries.
As a lawyer Mr. Grant should have been fully aware that both he and Mr. Richards were not eligible to contest the 2004 general elections. For him to come now and say to the public that he would renounce his United States citizenship is for Mr. Grant to attempt to once again contest an election unconstitutionally.
His explanation that Mr. Richards will resign from the National Assembly and then renounce his United States citizenship before he contest the subsequent by-election is again another attempt by a trained lawyer to deceive and mislead the public.
For certain if Mr. Grant has read the Constitution of the Federation he would know that legally speaking there is no need for Mr. Richards to resign as his contest and subsequent victory in the 2004 Elections is an entire nullity and of no effect.
Well it should be interesting to see what the next move will be for a drowning politician who has barely gotten his feet in the water. If Mr. Grant is serious about his claims of transparency and accountability he would do the honourable thing and resign as leader of his floundering PAM party.
The words of the late Sir Lee L. Moore QC, have truly come to pass – the laws they concocted to keep the Labour Party out of government, have come back to haunt them and their successors in the PAM party, as he warned way back in 1982 and 1983.
