BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – LINDSAY GRANT, Leader of St. Kitts opposition party the People’s Action Movement (PAM), has claimed that the upcoming general election is about “the three Cs” – Crime, Corruption and Cost of living.
In an exclusive interview with SKNVibes, the attorney-at-law highlighted those issues as being pivotal to his party’s election campaign. Grant’s announcement came hot on the heels of Thursday night’s (Jan. 7) revelation by Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas that the election would be held on Monday, January 25, a little less than three weeks from now.
Since the launch of the “On the road to victory” campaign last year, PAM has released snippets of measures it would introduce to improve the aforementioned issues. Their three-pronged crime plan targeting the police force and the nation’s youth has been in the public arena since 2009.
As Election Day draws inexorably closer, Grant is now divulging more details about what a PAM government would do to tackle corruption and the high cost of living.
“If we have the opportunity to lead this country for the next five years, a PAM government will remove all duties, consumption taxes and other charges on food coming into this country.
“That will have a major impact on every single citizen – it’s going to give them more disposable income, it will make their lives much easier and it will ease the suffering that the people of our country have been under for a very long time.”
Grant said that Kittitians and Nevisians were tired of “dishonest” and “shady” politicians, and that his party would enact the Freedom of Information Act, the Integrity in Public Life Act and an Anti-Corruption Act to promote good governance and leadership.
While “thrilled” that a polling date had finally been set, the PAM leader admitted he was apprehensive about some of the tactics the ruling St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) was using.
“Just on Sunday, I was told that the SKNLP candidate for Constituency Eight (Hon. Cedric Liburd) was calling new voters in the Half Moon Bay area. How did he get that information? It means that the SKNLP candidates took information out of the electoral office to call persons and campaign. That is an abuse and misuse of a state institution and persons should be concerned by that,” he noted.
Grant promised that his party would have a public meeting each night until Election Day and a manifesto would be launched “very soon”. He predicted that not only would his party retain its seat, but that it would walk away with the “overwhelming majority”.
“January 25 will be freedom day, freedom from the Denzil Douglas administration. The people want a new direction, a new leadership. We expect people to come out and vote for change. Nothing will stop the change.”
In the 2005 general election, PAM won one of the eight Parliamentary seats on St. Kitts. The party had previously ruled the twin-island Federation from 1980 to 1995.
