St. John’s Antigua: Antigua & Barbuda has wound up in the middle of a row between Government and opposition forces in St Vincent and the Grenadines centred on a likely vote of no-confidence in that country’s administration, the Antigua Observer reported.
Vincentian Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, has charged that unnamed Antiguan financiers are involved in the plot being cooked up by the New Democratic Party (NDP), a charge Leader of the Opposition, Arnhim Eustace, has refuted.
But Dr. Gonsalves insists he has “impeccable intelligence” that financiers here have pledged to bankroll the NDP on the promise that the country’s economic and honorary citizenship programme would be reinstated. That programme was scrapped in August 2001 by the Gonsalves regime, the Observer said.
“Two weeks ago, the NDP leadership went to Antigua for a meeting with a set of financiers where this promise was held out as the basis for them, on an ongoing condition, to finance the NDP to bring down the legitimate elected government of this country,” Dr. Gonsalves charged at a media conference in his homeland.
Dr. Gonsalves alleged that some of the financers involved in last month’s talks, supported the NDP in the 2010 elections, and at that time the party also held out the promise of economic citizenship as “the carrot.”
He described the situation as one of “desperation” citing that a member of the group of financiers in St John’s went as far as to suggest monitoring his telephone conversations as well as others.
However, in a heated response, Eustace termed the Prime Minister’s allegations as “sick“ though he confirmed that a meeting did take place here, according to the Observer report.
Party members, he stressed, are free to meet with anyone they choose to “at anytime, in any country.”
“I don’t take very seriously, the comments made by the prime minister,” he told OBSERVER Media, as he accused the Vincentian leader of operating “out of fear” because of his party’s one-seat majority in parliament.
“…That’s not his business. We have a right to have such meetings with persons who have an interest and who have assisted us in the past. I don’t make any excuse for having such meetings to Dr. Gonsalves or anybody else.
“We have to look after the interest of our party and the interest of our country and Dr. Gonsalves is out of his place to be discussing what he thinks we discussed in a meeting in Antigua.”
The opposition leader said the prime minister has made similar allegations in the past.
Dr. Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party was re-elected for a third straight term in December 2010 with a one-seat majority in the 15-member Parliament.
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