Accuses NRP of hiring Jamaican national to woo voters
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DEPUTY LEADER of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), Hon. Mark Brantley has accused the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP) of offering Nevisians $2 500 each in an effort to gain their support in the upcoming Federal Elections.
“I came on this show and I said to people that you can go to TDC, get an estimate for twenty-five hundred dollars building materials and take it to either Patrice Nisbett or his manager Wilkin and you will get a voucher or something to get the money.”
Brantley made this statement, among others, last Wednesday (Nov. 19) on his weekly talk show programme – ‘On the Mark’.
Brantley claimed it was said that after CCM’s supporters were aware of the offering, they made their way to TDC but most of them went home empty-handed.
“They say that how CCM people full up the line and the fellows dropped the programme and say ‘lawd they stop the programme’,” Brantley explained.
The CCM’s Deputy Leader, who is also one of the Deputy Leaders of the tri-party coalition - Team Unity, opined that the NRP had claimed the initiative was designed to benefit Nevisians but he saw it as a ploy to buy their votes.
“It is just interesting…you have a programme you say to benefit Nevis people, but really and truly it is not to benefit Nevisians, it is to benefit the people you are trying to influence in the sense of saying that you want to buy their vote. And so I hope who took five and six shares could give their neighbours some.”
Troy Liburd, who co-hosted the talk show, also had his say on the alleged programme.
“The funny thing is with this two thousand five hundred dollars thing, you spoke about it the week before last Wednesday and by the Thursday they shut it down at TDC. And then I understand that they moved it down to Horsford, but people found out it was at Horsford and everybody started going; all the CCM supporters started going. They shut it down like TDC the next day,” Liburd said.
Brantley also accused the NRP of enlisting the services of a Jamaican national to solicit votes for the party.
“Things are heating up here! We expect that an election is gonna come any time soon. There are posters up and today I was advised that we have some Jamaicans here…a Jamaican lady who is supposedly hired by the NRP. The NRP has no money to hire anybody so let us make it clear…hired by Labour in St. Kitts for the NRP.”
He stated that the Jamaican national is working for Patrice Nisbett and Robelto Hector, and questioned if she had advised the NRP on the implementation of the alleged programme.
“…They are running around here saying that they are making inroads in St. James and St. Thomas’, and I gather in town and in St. John’s because the two people they are working for are the Hon. Patrice Nisbett and the Hon. El Hansley Hector. Those are the two they are working for and working around. I don’t know if, for example, they are the ones who advised them of this twenty-five hundred dollars gimmick that they ran the other day.”
In an invited comment, Leader of the NRP, the Hon. Joseph Parry refuted Brantley’s accusations of offering money to Nevisians to get their vote.
He vehemently denied that the NRP was engaged in such an activity and stressed that Brantley would do anything to discredit his party, noting that CCM is unable to change dialogue and he would not allow members of the ruling party to set NRP’s agenda.
“They are totally incompetent and cannot run the government,” Parry added.
With reference to the Jamaican national, Parry confirmed that she was indeed hired by the NRP but not for the purpose that Brantley proposed to listeners of his talk show.
He pointed out that most, if not all, political parties in the region as well as those outside the Caribbean normally seek the services of consultants whenever they are in election mode.
Parry said the hiring of consultants by political parties in St. Kitts and Nevis to advise on election strategies is no secret to citizens and residents of the Federation, and that Brantley is pointing fingers at the NRP when his party also applies the same strategy.
“Brantley is claiming that the NRP has recruited a Jamaican, but he is not telling people that in 2006 the CCM had sought the services of Hartley Henry from Barbados, who came to Nevis with two assistants,” Parry said.
