BASSETERRRE, St. Kitts – PRIME MINISTER of St. Kitts and Nevis the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas declared that he is “not handpicking anybody” as his successor “because a process has to be gone through”.
Dr. Douglas was at the time (Feb. 12) speaking on his weekly ‘Ask the Prime Minister’ radio programme.
He outlined the “three critical steps” stipulated by the Constitution of St. Kitts and Nevis that allow one to be become Prime Minister.
“One, make sure you become the leader of the party. Secondly, take your party and its supporters to the electorate and win an election and, thirdly, when you would have won have your colleagues agree with you so that the Governor-General can determine who the person, in his opinion, is best to lead those who have the majority. These are three critical steps.”
Dr. Douglas explained that anyone has the right to advance as leader of the country and gave reasons why he would not choose his successor.
“Any of us in this country must have the right to advance to become the leader of our country. Any of us in our party must have that right. I am not handing over anything on a platter to anybody. I am not handpicking anybody, because a process has to be gone through. And, we’ve seen, in the Caribbean in particular, whenever a leader handpicks his successor, it fails.
“Every single country in the Caribbean we can see that happening. And in our case, we have a Constitution. It gives us three steps! One, become the leader of the party; secondly, win the election with your team; and thirdly, have your team, who has been successful, support you; go to Government House and have yourself sworn in as Prime Minister. These are the steps.”
