The Labour Spokesman Editorial
The 2008 economic and financial catastrophe was a global experience. We, St. Kitts and Nevis, dealt with it in such a calm and successful manner that others have been left wondering aloud. Our beloved Comrade Leader, Dr. The Right Honourable Denzil Douglas, was at the time our nation’s prime minister and minister for finance. So outstanding was his performance that numerous international organisations called upon him to lead efforts designed to assist Small Island Developing States with overcoming the problems of that crisis.
Those accomplishments have proven to be like a bone in the craw of Prime Minister Dr. Timothy Harris. At each and every opportunity he seeks to bad-mouth Dr. Douglas, and accuses him of leaving the country owing The IMF some $117,000,000, quite conveniently avoiding the fact that repayments were very much on schedule, and that we had been the very first country anywhere in the world to return to that body unused, stand-by funds. Harris conveniently tries to side-step the fact that when Labour demitted office, they left more than eight hundred million dollars ($800,000,000) in the Treasury.
Harris’ attempts to disassociate himself from cabinet decisions made while he was a member of the government weakens the constitutional and legal validity of collective responsibility, one of the foundational pillars of governmental accountability. If Dr. Harris truly disagreed with those decisions and policies, he should have resigned. Why did he not do so?
Dr. Timothy Harris has made this election all about himself. In addition to his utterly dismal performances, inadequacies and incompetence, he has shown himself to be unworthy of any such consideration. Effectively, Harris has disqualified himself. Comrade Douglas is the person that our country needs at the helm of the ship of state. When we go to the upcoming polls: on St. Kitts VOTE LABOUR, and on Nevis VOTE NRP.