By Devonne Cornelius
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Social commentators Dwyer Astaphan and Maurice “EK” Flanders have described Team Unity’s ongoing discord as a “hot mess” outlining some areas of contention within the coalition.
Appearing on the April 16 edition of WINN FM’s Inside the News, EK expressed his opinion on the issues surrounding the fair share of revenue from the Citizenship By Investment (CBI) Program and term limits for Prime Ministers, two major areas penned in the Charlestown Accord.
“Seven years later, these fractions are arguing over two key points in my humble estimation, and those key points are the same things that they came to power on,” EK said.
He added: “The People’s Action Movement is of the opinion right now that the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to want to relinquish power…remember it was said back then that Dr. Denzil Douglas was there too long…and an article was written by one of our learned QC’s that the powers of the Prime Minister need to be checked but the only how you can check that is to change it in the constitution…and the other point is the CBI money and how the monies are spent and shared.”
Astaphan concurred with EK’s points and further lamented that the enactment of the Charlestown Accord into law could have prevented the issues currently facing Team Unity.
“While the Charlestown Accord and the Treaty of National Unity were not legally binding instruments, from the time they were signed, they were politically binding instruments and they should have been formalized by being entered into the record of the Cabinet of the Federation and also being entered into the record of the parliament in the form of resolutions – adopting those two documents – I think that ought to have been done and perhaps it was an oversight that it wasn’t done because there are lawyers in and around the government.
People said ‘well we don’t have to do that because we are going to operate on trust. Well guess what happens, they have now found out if not before, that trust doesn’t have much currency in those circles because used it themselves…distrust…the Deputy Prime Minister speaks about the widening gap and not being able to resolve the issues and as he does those things, this thing is in the open now and there is no subtlety to it and this is a brawl in the middle of Fort Street.”
Prime Minister Harris has been accused of secretly coveting a third term and is preparing his People’s Labour Party for a snap election. But Prime Minister Harris has since dismissed those claims.
“The Prime Minister, with the references to the world bank, that’s only a device to run the clock and to buy time because I think he believes the more time he has, the stronger he can make his own PLP,” Mr. Astaphan said.
In an address by Premier of Nevis Hon. Mark Brantley on Saturday (April 16), he informed the nation that the Hon. Shawn Richards and himself wrote to Prime Minister Harris setting out their position for a path forward. Brantley said they have given Prime Minister Harris a April 20, 2022 deadline for a response. If there is no favorable response, Team Unity may face dissolution
