BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, November 12, 2018 (PLP PR Media Inc.) -- Prime Minister Dr the Hon Timothy Harris, who was first elected as a Member of Parliament for St. Christopher Seven on November 29, 1993 and returned to parliament in five subsequent elections has said that his deepest inspiration has always come from the people.
Prime Minister Harris made the remarks on Sunday November 11 at a special church service ‘Celebrating 25 years of service by Dr the Honourable Timothy S. Harris’ held at the House of Deliverance New Testament Church of God in Tabernacle. The church service was the first of events that will be held in the next three weeks in celebration of Dr Harris’ 25th Anniversary of service to the people of St. Christopher Seven, and the country.
“Let me say how grateful I am to the organising committee of my Constituency Number Seven for putting on this programme and a series of events to mark my twenty five years of service,” said Dr Harris, who is also the National Political Leader of the Peoples Labour Party (PLP), one of the three parties in the Team Unity Administration.
Dr Harris told the congregation that packed the church, whose service was also broadcasted live and streamed on the internet, that it had been twenty five years of work, of good times and bad times. He however added that through it all, one thing that was constant was his deepest inspiration that always came from the people who had never let him down.
“The work then of helping to deliver the constituency rested with the people of Number Seven,” said Dr Harris as he narrated events leading to, and after, the 1993 elections. “I say thank you to the wonderful people of Number Seven, who placed their trust in me, and time after time, again and again, you have returned me as your beloved member of parliament for St. Christopher Seven.”
Prime Minister Harris however revealed that when he arrived from Montreal, Canada, for the 1993 elections, he had meant to say to the people ‘no’ as he had a contract with the University of the West Indies to pursue a career as a professor at the St. Augustine Campus in Trinidad. The university had invested over half a million Trinidad and Tobago dollars to prepare him to go and do his PhD and to come back and to serve.
But on arrival at the airport in Basseterre there was a crowd waiting for him outside, including his mother, and many who went to Cayon High School with him. A lot of them were carrying flags. He felt it was not a good time to give them the ‘no’, and reasoned that he would wait until the next day and he would give them a ‘no’.
The church was tickled when he said ‘tomorrow never came’ because among those in the crowd were a number of persons who felt that he was the right person for the job and after they counselled him, he now says ‘the rest is history’. He added: “I had said then: what I felt in my spirit was the need to stick with these my people to provide for them leadership that I didn’t know I had, but they saw in me.”
Looking back at the subsequent elections, Dr Harris said that the good people of Constituency Number Seven gave him strong support in 1995, 2000, 2004, 2010, and 2015. Three parties, the Peoples Labour Party, the People’s Action Movement (PAM), and the Nevis-based Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) came together as Team Unity with Dr Harris as its leader for the 2015 elections.
This was unprecedented in the history of the country and Team Unity on winning the 2015 elections, Dr Harris became the third Prime Minister of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“So today, as we look back and look forward, I want to say a tremendous ‘thank you’ to all of you who have been with me in the beginning, all of you who came to give me your support because through the years I would have earned that support,” said the Honourable Prime Minister. “From the bottom of my heart, I say thank you very much and I will always love you.”
The church service was conducted by Senior Pastor Mrs Octavia Charles-Warner. Present included Mrs Ermine Phipps widow of the late Bishop Edward Phipps, and her mother-in-law Mrs Rosetta ‘Sarah-Jane’ Phipps, who is visiting from England and was accompanied by her daughter Mrs Elvena Brumant. Mrs Rosetta ‘Sarah-Jane’ Phipps is Prime Minister Harris’ aunt.
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