BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - KNOWN for his eloquence speeches, Jamaican politician and educator Damion Crawford has placed on record a call for the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis to recognize the Opposition and to have it more involved in the political landscape.
This, according to Crawford, comes on the heels of the Government’s failure to invite the Opposition to the opening ceremony of the Timothy Hill Tunnel; a project which started under the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) administration that was ousted at the 2015 General Elections.
Crawford, the Guest Speaker at the SKNLPs 84th Annual National Conference held yesterday (May 22) at the Royal St. Kitts Hotel Conference Room, was appalled to have seen the Opposition absent from the 2016 Tourism Awards Ceremony held on the previous day, leading him to conclude that “things are done different here”.
“I went yesterday to a function for the Tourism Board and I saw nobody from the Opposition. I was looking for Ricky Skerritt (and) I didn’t see him, I was looking for the boss [Dr. Denzil Douglas] and he wasn’t there…Because if the Government is divided, and Government also includes those in Opposition, then they will take advantage of the people.”
He reminded that it was under Dr. Asim Martin stewardship that the project was fully initiated, while jokingly pointing out that the former Minister was having fish.
The former Jamaican Parliamentarian, who had been on St. Kitts for a number of days prior to the Convention, informed that his investigations and the feedback he received, persons are unhappy with the direction in which the Federation is heading.
This revelation received loud applauses from the hundreds in attendance.
“...When I am on the road and talking to the people, they don’t know that I am not from here and they telling me all of the things that they are not satisfied with. Therefore, you should be ready because anytime soon,” he urged.
Against that backdrop, Crawford told the gathering that when parties lose elections they should use that opportunity to reflect on two things: “For what we should be going forward and why the people were not satisfied.”
He opined that most times parties do not take that opportunity, instead they accept that the people are foolish, adding that a smart man could make a foolish choice and that is based on the information he receives.
To this end, Crawford noted that “in elections and politics there is so much levels of misinformation, that many smart people are making foolish choices”.
