BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A former Government Minister is calling on the Team Unity Administration to have Sir Edmund Lawrence replaced as the Governor-General of St. Kitts and Nevis.
The call was made by Dwyer Astaphan on Tuesday evening (Apr. 14) during his weekly radio programme ‘The Operating Room’ aired on WINN FM with his co-host Richard Caines.
“The Governor-General, especially in the light of the decision of Justice Ramdhani, which is the law of the land, it is clear that there was no good reason for the Motion of No Confidence not to be heard. Lawrence could have pushed it to be heard and debated in the Parliament. There is ample legal precedent for that!
“Not only did he do nothing, he stubbornly and disrespectfully refused to accept a letter that the majority of elected Parliamentarians sent to him to indicate to him in pursuance of their constitutional rights who they supported. He ain’t take them on!” Astaphan said.
Astaphan is of the firm view that it is not in the best interest of the Team Unity Government for Sir Edmund to remain as the Head of State, and insinuated that he should has been removed from office shortly after the February 16 General Elections.
“He’s still at Springfield. He’s still in Government House, the Governor-General of this country. But who is going to convince me that eight weeks after the election Edmund Lawrence still supposed to be up there? And who is going to convince me that replacing him means that you are victimising him? Is two months too short a period to replace him? Can it be in the best interest of the new Administration for him to remain there?
“My position on this is nothing personal. My primary care and supreme care and concerns have to do with the people of this country and democracy.”
The former National Security Minister drew an analogy between a mongoose in a fowl pen and Sir Edmund in the Governor-General’s office.
“If you are a poultry farmer, you raise chickens and you do eggs, what will happen if a mongoose gets in the fowl house? When mongoose gets in the fowl house they eat the eggs and they eat the chicken. So the eggs gone, the chickens gone, you run out of poultry and the chicken farmer without chicken runs out of money. So the eggs, the poultry and the farmer all gone simply because a mongoose in the fowl coop.
”We don’t want no mongoose in the fowl coop! We want people who are going to work regardless of who they support. I don’t care who you support, vote on Election Day! Respect the job, respect the fact that the general public’s money is paying you. End of story! And every day he stays there, for me, is a threat to the mandate given to Team Unity by the voters of this country.”
In January 2013, Sir Edmund Wickham Lawrence had replaced Sir Cuthbert Sebastian as the Governor-General of the twin-island Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
At his Inauguration Ceremony on Wednesday, January 2, 2013, the then Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas said that Sir Edmund and his wife Lady Hulda Lawrence are the personification of propriety, dignity, accomplishment and patriotism.
“Before going to that middle ground however, I think that it would be helpful if I were to begin by sharing with you the one sentence synopsis that could very easily encapsulate all that I will proceed to say this morning. And that sentence would be that in all that he undertakes, and in the execution of any responsibility that he assumes, Sir Edmund Lawrence’s unwavering modus operandi is always – and without exception - the pursuit of excellence,” Dr. Douglas had told the gathering at the Inauguration Ceremony.
However, members of the then Opposition and a number of social commentators, including Astaphan and Caines, were in disagreement with Sir Edmund’s modus operandi, claiming that he had failed in the execution of his duties as Governor-General when the Opposition had filed a Motion of No Confidence in the Labour Government, and also in the appointment of the Supervisor of Elections without consulting the Leader of the Opposition.
