Letter: Vincentians have spoken
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| Published on Thursday, November 26, 2009 |
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Dear Sir:
Vincentians have spoken - the electorate has rejected the referendum which was being railroaded by the Ralph Gonsalves administration to overhaul the 1979 Constitution. The people sent a clear message to the Prime Minister that they will not be fooled by him and his cronies.
Where do we go from here Mr Gonsalves? Our Treasury is now empty. I guess you have no plan B as you did not expect this. Large sums from overseas were washing the streets in order to bribe the electorate.
Up to press time the “yes” vote had 44.69% and the “No” vote 56.31% and given the constituencies already in, therefore it is not possible for the “yes” vote to catch or even come close to the required 67%.
The campaign leading up to Wednesday's referendum was intense, with both the governing United Labour Party (ULP) and the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) engaged in vigorous campaigning. Despite financial constraints by the NDP, the party, with moral assistance from supporters at home and abroad, mounted an intelligent and strategic opposition which bore fruit.
The opposition criticized the Gonsalves administration for rushing the Bill through Parliament without giving the opposition enough time to debate the measure, and legal analysts claim that the Bill is flawed because debate in Committee stage started before the mandatory 90-day period.
The Constitution was drafted after six years of consultation with Vincentians at home and abroad, and among the controversial sections were the removal of the Queen as Head of State to be replaced by a President, who is to be elected by Parliament, and the Prime Minister to have more powers.
Another critical section is removing the Privy Council as the final Court and replacing it with the Caribbean Court of Justice, which is not extremely necessary at this time.
I have been saying time and time again in numerous letters to Caribbean Net News that there is no need for a new constitution at this time, and the entire exercise is a waste of public funds. Gonsalves no doubt had other reasons, hence the reason why US dollars were pouring in the country. We need to fix the economy and the health problems before fixing anything else.
It seems as if from the results the electorates pocketed the bribe money and refused to vote Yes.
Our Treasury was raped by the Gonsalves administration and the money needed by the country was wasted.
The government is unable to pay its bills since all payments from the Treasury were put on hold because the Treasury is empty after the payment of the $4 million allocated by Special Warrant to be used for the Referendum "education" programme. What education programme? It was for a Yes campaign, not to mention the "bribe" money by way of payment to school children.
Gonsalves should resign or a no confidence motion should be moved against him for squandering government funds.
Mourine De Freitas-Ramjeet | | | | Reads : 1216 | | | |
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