The importance of this election: free, fair and just!

The importance of this 2019 general election cannot be understated. The people of this country made it clear who they wanted for the next five years.

Thursday, 12th December 2019

The importance of this 2019 general election cannot be understated. The people of this country made it clear who they wanted for the next five years. They also made it transparent that they were not prepared to accept the politics of anger, deception, hypocrisy and violence for the next five years. This was especially so with the transparently fraudulent allegations made by Lennox Linton of the theft of 1.2 billion and election reform, and the coordinated violence the days before the election on the 6th December 2019. Significantly, Linton continued to hustle his lies on the 1.2 billion and election reform notwithstanding his failure to produce an iota of evidence, and indisputable the fact that he was primarily responsible for blocking the enactment of electoral reform. More importantly, Lennox Linton planted his pathway to Government on two limbs. The first involved the embrace of the Secretary-General of the OAS. He sent Crispin Gregoire camouflaged as a former ambassador to speak with the Secretary-General. Emboldened Linton went personally to see the Secretary-General, and out came another tweet. The seed was, therefore planted. Subsequently, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the OAS went to the OAS and presented the facts. During the Minister’s presentation, one could sense the members of the OAS had been misled on the facts. Some days later the OAS was invited to send an observer mission team to the election of the 76th December 2019. Also invited were teams from the Commonwealth, CARICOM and Latin America. Following the election, on the 6th all of the observer teams said the election was free and fair and reflected the will of the people. Consequently, congratulations from the OAS and the USA and several other organizations and countries flowed to our Government and country. This universal endorsement of our election and the results was however greeted with immaturity and hostility by members and supporters of the UWP at the press conferences, and then on Q95 and social media. Lennox Linton then jumped in with open intellectual dishonesty. He said the election was stolen and the DLP flew in 8000 electors. Within 8 hours DASPA issued a press release repudiated the 8000 electors lie. Linton’s ostrich-like denial in the face of an overwhelming and crushing defeat and the unanimous vote of confidence from the very team sent by the Secretary-General of the OAS confirmed for us a deep personal story about him, a story already on the minds of the electors when they decided to place their cross on election day. The other important limb was Linton’s reliance on allegations of corruption and Al Jazeera. In full Don Quixote mode, Linton and his supporters promoted corruption and the Al Jazeera’ s documentary as the funeral march of Roosevelt Skerrit. Linton did so brazenly with full knowledge of the 4 million ECD received by his party in 2005, all in exchange for diplomatic passports, and the 1.5 USD paid on their behalf in 2009. And, he must have known too that his agents were peddling passports in exchange for campaign funds. The full scale of Linton and the UWP’s ongoing hypocrisy since 2005 was exposed by Al Jazeera. This documentary showed at the very least that having sought for years to demonize our Government and country especially on CBS 60 minutes Lennox Linton was in fact the last one in our land to speak of corruption and alleged sales of diplomatic passports. On the 6th December 2019 the electors were, in the midst of the stones and smoke from the criminal violence, armed and loaded with the additional facts on Linton’s unforgivable sin of deception and hypocrisy. The result of the election, therefore, has nothing to do with reform, or theft. It has everything to do with leadership. It represents a wholesale indictment of Linton’s superficial and incompetent leadership, comprehensive rejection of his lies, deception, hypocrisy, and constant resort to threats of violence and disorder. In other words, the ills which the UWP faced, and now faces, are not external. These ills reside solely in the bosom of Lennox Linton, and the party who elected and blindly supported his mind bending machinations and trespasses. And yes, the election was free and fair and wholly justified.

12th December 2019

Anthony W Astaphan,SC