BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A massive crowd turned out Thursday evening (Jan. 8) at the CEMACO Parking Lot in Pond’s Pasture to hear the messages and issues that members of Team Unity had to offer and discuss, respectively, at the launch of their “Year of Change” election campaign.
With the exception of Nevis’ Premier Hon. Vance Amory and the inclusion of Troy Liburd of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM), Team Unity’s members were out in their numbers and spoke glowingly in support of their candidate for Constituency Number One, Ian ‘Patches’ Liburd.
The large gathering was entertained firstly by Lady Diva singing ‘Dear Fans’ and she was followed by Big Lice with ‘How low can you Go’, De Unexpected with ‘Let de Army Man Sing’ and the reigning Calypso Monarch, King Astro, ended with ‘Flush It’.
The candidate for Constituency Number Three, the Hon. Sam Condor, was first in addressing the massive crowd that included a boat-load of supporters from Nevis.
Condor told his audience that Team Unity is in campaign mode and called on them to “keep your ears and your eyes open for the series of meetings that will take place leading up to the January 26th election”.
He commended the Team’s supporters and stressed that its members would take the country forward on the road of progress and success.
“I also want to commend all who have brought us to this position; this position where we are poised to take our country forward. Three political parties coming together just about two years ago where the situation demanded that we put aside our personal political party differences and come together to take our country forward. And we are presenting to the people of this country a unity team that we are confident will take this country forward. We will be able to regain paradise lost and set our country back on the road to progress and success.”
Condor said that Team Unity is a response to the Macedonian call of the people in St. Kitts and Nevis and noted the tri-party coalition would bring about a new dispensation in a time when there is a need for people with honour.
“We are united in the cause for a new dispensation, a new order, and so this concept is both historic and unprecedented and we believe that this is exactly what the country needs. It is what a time like this demands! A time like this demands men and women with strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands; men and women who the lust of office does not kill; men and women whom the spoils of office cannot buy; men and women who possess opinions and a will; men and women who have honour; men and women who will not lie. And that is what Team Unity will be presenting to you – a new administration of men and women committed to the cause of nation building and providing assistance to the general welfare of all of us...men who will not lie. We have been living a lie over the last so many years in this country and I want to say to you that this year, 2015, will be 20 years of the Douglas-led Administration; an entire generation.”
The Constituency Three Parliamentary Representative once again endorsed Liburd and asked the constituents in East Basseterre should ensure that the Hon. Dr. Asim Martin is replaced by Ian ‘Patches’ Liburd.
He said that Liburd is an experienced public servant. “In fact, he is somebody who has been in both the public and private sectors at the highest level. And when I speak of this man I give a personal testimony, because I have been in government for a number of years and I know when I speak of him I speak of personally how he worked as a permanent secretary. I have worked with the best in this country, and I say Ian ‘Patches’ Liburd is one of the best administrators in this country.”
Jonel Powell, Team Unity’s candidate for West Basseterre, also requested that constituents in East Basseterre to vote for Liburd.
He called on all supporters of Team Unity to be militant and vigilant on Election Day and warned that no one who does not reside in his constituency should go there to vote on that day.
Representation is”.
Lindsay Grant was next and he declared that Team Unity was the “Dream Team” with experienced men. A team, he added, that the Labour Party said could not work, “but we have been together for two years under trying circumstances”.
Grant said for 15 years he has been fighting and would continue to fight “to get the Douglas Administration out of office in the next 30 days”.
He also said that the people in Constituency Number Four now understand “what is good representation”.
In his presentation, Leader of the People’s Action Movement and Parliamentary Representative for Constituency Five, the Hon Shawn Richards posited that elections must be called before June and that the Government does not care for either the young or the elderly.
He spoke to the Basseterre High School issue, noting that Senator Nigel Carty has been playing around with the health of the students for over two years, but that “relief is coming to the people”.
Richards told the constituents of East Basseterre that “it is time to put an end to sleeping representation and embrace one your own”.
The Hon. Eugene Hamilton also beseeched the constituents to vote for Liburd and pointed out a number of areas in which he claimed were shortcomings of the Labour Administration.
CCM’s Alexis Jeffers next took the podium and stated that Team Unity had and would defy all odds and that “Douglas is like a broken down old car and it is time to push him out of the way”.
He said that the Nevis Reformation Party was formed to fight the Labour Party but it has now joined hands with Dr. Douglas who has been a stumbling block.
Jeffers said Nevis would be coming to St. Kitts with three seats and thinks that Grant has “an excellent chance this year”.
In a brief but fiery presentation, CCM’s Troy Liburd said they would be coming over to St. Kitts with three seats to bring a change in the Federation.
“This is no ordinary election...Team Unity will be putting the people first”, he said, adding that the team is epitomising togetherness while asking the audience to give Unity a chance in the upcoming elections to prove its worth.
It was then Patches Liburd turn to woo constituents. He started by asking the crowd if Unity would be going down Church Street, to which he had a resounding response of “yes”.
“My family, 2015 is a year of serious decisions; decisions that will have an impact on our children and on our children’s children and an impact on generations to come. The time is nigh when we in this Constituency will soon have to hire someone to manage the affairs of the Constituency and the development of the Constituency and, by extension, the development of the country,” Patches said.
Launching his attack on the current Area Representative, he said: “In the case of East Basseterre, we have a man called Earl Asim Steadroy Walters Martin from Market Shop, Gingerland, Nevis. He doesn’t like people to know he is from Nevis!”
He asked: “All the time Douglas went to Nevis, has Asim ever went with him?” In answering his own question, Patches said, “He is not going to Nevis,” adding, “But in the case of East Basseterre, we have a representative seeking re-employment and you have your humble servant Ian Patches Liburd seeking employment for the first time.”
The former Labour Party Permanent Secretary emphatically stated that he is a son of East Basseterre, a place where he was raised and still lives. “My family, you know me and I know you, so it must be better together.”
He told the gathering that honesty and performance are two things they should look into when electing anyone to office. “But ask yourself a question my family...with all documented deception, lies, corruption that we know about the Labour Party, do you believe that we should ever re-elect Asim Martin again? Can we say that Asim Martin is honest? Asim Martin has used his public office for private gains! For nigh 20 years he has accumulated plenty money, plenty houses, but the poor people through the alleys in Newtown are living hand-to-mouth, as we say, and we have to change that.
“The poor people in Taylors Village have been neglected for nigh 20 years, and some from old Taylors Village still live in squalid conditions. They, along with poor people on Wellington Road, West Street and East Street live in some horrible conditions.”
Patches claimed that the people in Frigate Bay and Bird Rock were conned by the changed focus on Educational Tourism, and all the foreign students are seen going to hotels that they now use as dorms because of a failed tourism policy that could not attract stay-over arrivals.
He also said that some 25 businesses in East Basseterre were closed under Asim Martin’s watch.
Patches Liburd made several commitments to the East Basseterre constituents and others in the Federation. He said when elected to office, he would, among other initiatives, provide titles to land of those who have been living in East Street for many years; donation of half of his salary to a Social Assistance and Youth Development Fund; relocate the east-line bus park on Branch Street so as to ease the congestion and nuisance to residence there; and that a Government of National Unity would provide an easier and quicker path to citizenship for all in the Federation, including the Spanish community.
Taking to the podium amidst loud cheers, Deputy Leader of the CCM and one of the Deputy Leaders of Team Unity, the Hon. Mark Brantley said he was at the launch to lend support to the candidacy of Patches Liburd.
“We were in Nevis tonight, we had an important meeting because over there we are ready, but we said we wanted to be here tonight to lend our support to Ian Patches Liburd right here in East Basseterre. And East Basseterre has plenty Nevis people living here. They came here years ago and they are still here. And I want the people of East Basseterre, especially those from Nevis, to understand that I see Ian Patches Liburd in Nevis more than I see Steadroy. I don’t understand a man who hails from Nevis is afraid to come to Nevis. He has never come back, and I am saying to you that Ian Patches Liburd is the best choice for East Basseterre.”
Brantley said that he, Alexis Jeffers and Troy Liburd wanted to be in East Basseterre to once again reaffirm the CCM’s commitment to “this new paradigm of governance; this new approach to delivering services to our people; this effort that we have never seen before in our history; this opportunity that has presented itself where we, those in the Concerned Citizens Movement, those of the People’s Labour Party and those in the great People’s Action Movement, have come together as one to say to one and all, those at home and those abroad, to say to the region and to the world that together we are better”.
The Deputy Leader said he has no fear that as sure the sun would rise there would be a new Government when the election is called, adding that “Denzil Douglas knows it and he is afraid of it”.
Brantley launched an attack on Dr. Douglas, claiming that any man who has been Prime Minister for “20 long years and still scheming for more, you have to ask why, what he has to hide. After 20 long years you would expect he will retire to one of his mansions in Dubai. But no, he is scheming and plotting and say he wants more. And so now, here at the eleventh hour, he comes now to say he wants boundary changes”
He continued: “And (he) has the heart to say to sensible people, a nation that boasts a literacy rate of 98 percent, he says to us that the boundaries are illegal. Well, if the boundaries are illegal that means he is illegal, because he won elections on the same boundaries he now says are illegal! He says he must change the boundaries because the OAS and CARICOM and other observers say so. Well, they said so 10 years ago!”
Brantley said that instead of giving the nation hope and pointing out a better way forward, Dr. Douglas chose instead “the low-based politics”.
He also said the Prime Minister claimed that the Constitution is flawed, but after 20 years he has done nothing to have it rectified.
“You had all eight, you had seven, you wait till now you have four to say the Constitution is flawed? And how are you going to get it fixed now? You are going to fix it when you only have one on the Opposition benches?” Brantley questioned and told the crowd, “You all heard me, I told him so in Parliament! I want him to be on the Opposition benches...”
Brantley said with Team Unity there would be restoration of decency and good governance in St. Kitts and Nevis.
“Our children should no longer have a prime minister as a ringtone. The children in primary school should no longer, when somebody does them something bad, say you get a Douggie. The reality is that our office of Prime Minister has been debased, our office of Speaker has been debased, our office of Commissioner of Police, our office of Governor General, they have all found themselves in a morass. Because, you see, leadership comes from the top, and if the topis not doing what is right so too will the nation what is right,” he added.
Brantley then introduced the Leader of the People’s Labour Party, the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris, who told the audience that their numbers reminded him of the massive launch of Team Unity at Greenlands.
“Who would have predicted tonight that in East Basseterre Team Unity comes and there was no room. No room for the strangers of truth! So tomorrow they say 50 people at CEMACO, flush that. Thousands here!
“This is the start! Tell them come to Cayon on Sunday night. And tell them, we are warning them that in defence of democracy we will take thousands through the streets of Basseterre. This is a sign of the people’s victory and we will not let Peter Jenkins, Denzil Douglas, Edmond Lawrence, not one of them will rob us of our victory.”
The Team Unity’s Prime Ministerial candidate said that the time for boundary changes are gone and it is now election time, adding that, judging from the amount of people in support of his team, they would “bang them on any boundary”.
