CHARLESTOWN, Nevis – IN his continued attack on agents of the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP), Deputy Leader of the ruling Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), the Hon. Mark Brantley is accusing “someone’s activist” of bringing OECS nationals to be registered in Nevis for the impending General Elections.
“Just tonight I got information that there is someone’s activist right in Brown Hill, my hometown of Brown Hill, who is systematically bringing in OECS nationals, have them staying at a house, taking them in and registering them. They get their IDs, they go back...of course to await the day when the call comes that we have an election.”
This latest allegation was made on Wednesday evening (Oct. 15) when Brantley held his weekly talk show programme – ‘On the Mark’ – aired on Von Radio in Nevis.
Brantley, who is also one of the Deputy Leaders of the collation opposition Team Unity, claimed that the OECS nationals allegedly brought into that island are not qualified to vote and that many Nevisians have been disenfranchised.
“People who are not Nevisians are being brought in, who don’t qualify, because if you are an OECS or Commonwealth national you must be here for 12 months. But somehow they are coming in the twos and threes and being registered and then being sent back out to await the call for the election. But Nevisians, born, bred, invested here...navel string buried here, have been systematically disenfranchised.”
With fingers pointing in NRP’s direction, Brantley said: “We would have thought that we would never ever have to deal with this issue again after the trauma the island went through in 2011. But then you cannot teach an old dog new tricks and the NRP knows only one way. And so this is what is happening.”
He however posited that the CCM would counter the alleged machinations by going court, but this time his party is not going to argue whether people should vote.
“This time we will be asking the Court to award some damages. This time we will be asking the Court to look and to award not just general damages but what we call exemplary damages. Because, the State, having gone through the trauma of 2011 and 2012, had fair warning that these practices are wrong. They are bad in law, they are unconstitutional and above all, in my view, they are immoral.”
Efforts, via telephone, to get a comment from NRP's Leader Hon. Joseph Parry on this latest accusation were futile.
