PAM vows campaign gloves will soon come off
By Ryan Haas
Reporter-SKNVibes.com
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts-THE launch of two new candidates by the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party and recent removal of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) billboards has prompted the opposition party to say they will “step up” their campaign efforts in the near future.
“We have always been a conservative party, so to speak, not as aggressive at the Labour Party,” PAM Leader Lindsay Grant said during a recent press conference.
“We are going to step up the campaign very shortly. We had started to step it up, and as you could see our billboards were taken down. Then we had the electricity and hurricane problems, so we want to let that pass, but we will soon make more of a public mark.”
Grant noted that PAM had been anticipating early elections, but now feels that they will likely be pushed back because of the recent crises in the Federation.
“We were looking at an election in November, but it does not appear now that it will come at that time. I would say that right out of the blocks after the Carnival season we are going to step up our campaign. We are soon going to announce our candidates and then we will begin the process.”
The PAM Leader, however, remained clandestine about who those potential candidates would be, only willing to say that their names would be “announced at a press conference very soon”.
On Tuesday (Oct. 21), Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas was asked by a caller on his “Ask the Prime Minister” radio program if he would be willing to hold debates with Grant before the 2008 general election.
Douglas told the caller that it was “still very early” to be talking about debates and the handlers of each party would have to, “at the right time determine whether the atmosphere is right for us to express our views to the people of St. Kitts-Nevis”.
Grant, conversely, went on the offensive on the subject, which he has repeatedly pushed for in the past.
“I have always said that I challenge the Prime Minister to a debate. I challenged him in 2004. He refused to have a debate and now he said this last thing about the handlers, but I am ready for the debate. I don’t have to go to my handlers to be ready for a debate. It is only a matter of if he is ready too for that debate.”
