The incumbent St. Kitts Nevis Labour Party and opposition party People’s Action Movement have both taken to the High Court to challenge the outcome of the January 25th general elections. The SKNLP won 6 of the 8 federal seats on St. Kitts to form the government last month with PAM being successful in Constituencies #5 and 8. PAM’s Eugene Hamilton was declared the winner in Constituency #8 following a recount of votes that resulted in his defeating SKNLP candidate Cedric Liburd By 31 votes. PAM leader Lindsay Grant, who lost to SKNLP first-time candidate Hon. Glenn Phillip in Constituency #4 By 29 votes, announced his party’s intention to challenge the election results in a court of Law. In a press release issued By the party just hours after the election was complete, PAM officials stated ‘the results, particularly in Constituency #4, #2 and #1 are not going to be accepted By the people without a fight”. “What happened on January 25th was not an accident. It was not the result of random circumstance. The hundreds of infractions of the law- crimes- that occurred were deliberately orchestrated in order to manufacture the desired result,” Grant said. Grant contends that the more than 3,000 persons living overseas who were flown in to vote in the elections helped tip the election scales in favor of the Labour party. He contends that the elections are not over. “The fraudulent elections and gross injustice that took place on January 25th will not go unanswered and unpunished. I will fight tooth and nail to ensure that democracy, justice and the rights and will of the people will and must prevail,” Grant said during a recently held post-election public meeting in Cayon. SKNLP parliamentary representative Hon. Glenn Phillip along with the supervisor of elections and members of the electoral commission were on Monday last served with the court petitions challenging the election results. Last Wednesday SKNLP leader Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas informed that two candidates from his party had also filed their own petitions before the High Court. “Labour candidates Dr. Norgen Wilson of constituency #5 and Mr. Cedric Liburd of constituency #8 have therefore filed petitions in the High Court challenging the qualifications o PAM candidates Hon. Shawn Richards of St. Christopher #5 and Hon. Eugene Hamilton of St. Christopher #8 to have been nominated,” Dr. Douglas said. The PM said the petitions were filed on the basis that Richards and Hamilton may have breached the constitution By allegedly being holders of foreign-issued travel documents at the time of their nomination on January 15th. “The Court has been asked to determine whether there has been any breach of the constitution which clearly states that no one should be elected or appointed to the federal parliament if such a person has taken an oath of allegiance to a foreign power.” As explained By the PM, if Hamilton and Richards were found to have breached the constitution and disqualified from holding seats in parliament, Wilson and Cedric Liburd would automatically be declared winners without the need for any bi-election. “With only two persons contesting the seat, if at the end of the day the breach is established then we would expect that the seat would be carried over automatically to the other person contesting the seat. We would hope and think that if the material evidence is substantiated, because it was a central matter at the constituency level, that the other person who was qualified as against who was not qualified should be given the seat.” The Observer spoke with Hamilton who said the PM’s claims were “absolute rubbish” and denied having ever sworn an oath of allegiance to any foreign power. “Those claims that I hold any foreign travel documents are absolute rubbish. If Labour party members are claiming otherwise then they need to be specific and say when this was done, where and to which government. If the Prime Minister cannot prove these as being factual then he needs to shut up!” Hamilton said. “I have never held any passport other than the one issued to me By the St. Kitts Government.” The PAM parliamentarian-elect said he had received notice of the petition a couple of weeks ago and had turned the matter over to his attorney. He said that he has not been notified as to any trial date and suspects the petition was a ‘smoke screen” created to placate displeased Labour party supporters. “I think they are just embarrassed to see that after all the cheating they did, they still lost the election. This is just a tactic meant for their supporters, who took the loss very hard, to give them some form of hope in the first three months. After it has died down I wouldn’t be surprised if they withdrew their petition,” he said. Last June Hon. Shawn Richards, as did Grant, declared that he had renounced his US citizenship By rescinding that country’s Oath of Allegiance.
