Last Updated on May 22, 2020, 7:34 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Former St Kitts and Nevis’ Ambassador to the United Nations, His Excellency Sam Condor said Wednesday that the Timothy Harris administration had not done enough during the tenure it had in the Government to introduce and implement its good Governance agenda on which the 2015 general election was fought.
In an interview prior to his Thursday press conference, the former deputy prime minister in the last Denzil Douglas St Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) administration explained that this would be a big issue again in the upcoming general election. Condor suggested that the Labour Party had lost the last general election despite having numerous good programmes.
He said that he believes that the main issue would be the new Government’s agenda. He could say that the upcoming election is not about programmes.
The Labour Party had a lot of programmes, they had many projects going on, the economy was also going well, and they were even paying back the IMF debt which they had borrowed. In fact, they were ahead of schedule in repaying the debt, the SIDF [Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation]. So it was not about programmes and policies, and so on, and not even the economy, it was the question of the Good Governance agenda.
He also noted that five years ago, the electoral boundaries were an issue and this was only decided a couple of days prior to the election, where the matter went before the Privy Council. He said that five years had now passed and the incumbent (Timothy Harris) Government and the Government still had not addressed the situation.
Condor added that the people are wondering to which boundaries they would be going to go to now, five years later. So there are some issues which are going to be highlighted in the election campaign.
He stated that some of the governance issues which he had expected to be raised in the general election would include transparency and corruption.
“Transparency, accountability, freedom of information, public accounts committee, the whole works, the whole gamut, the whole range of good governance issues. Election campaign funding, you name it, nepotism, corruption,” he remarked.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
