Caribbean News Now!

By Caribbean News Now contributor

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands -- It appears that, as the campaign to win a by-election in the Cheshire Hall and Richmond Hill Constituency in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands begins, the ruling Progressive National Party (PNP) is already resorting to gutter politics, according to the leader of the opposition.

Appearing on local television on Wednesday evening, Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) and opposition leader Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson brought with her a poster with photos of school children. The poster, which had been displayed in the Cheshire Hall district, proclaimed in Creole that if PDM candidate Oral Selver is elected Haitian children will be expelled from school.

This, the PDM leader said, is a virtual repeat of the campaign rhetoric heard during the general election on November 9, 2012.

“They were claiming that our former leader Oswald Skippings was anti Haitian,” she said.

“Look... only weeks ago immigration minister Don-Hue Gardiner said that undocumented Haitian lives must be made unbearable. This is current and is serious,” Cartwright-Robinson added.

The PDM leader then went on to say that she will ask Premier Rufus Ewing to cease this type of campaigning.

Cartwright-Robinson also reported that a Facebook posting claims that Selver has misappropriated $30,000 from the PDM and the party will not nominate him for the by-election run.

She said, “This is total nonsense and is dirty, gutter politics. There is no truth in these lies... Selver is our candidate and will remain our candidate... He is a businessman and is contributing to his own campaign. During the general election he helped other candidates.”

When asked about the premier’s recent call for the governor, CFO and attorney general to step down, Cartwright-Robinson said, “I have no information from Ewing or the PNP that they are having problems with the governor... I know he has said that running the government is hard but I assume that if they are having difficulties requiring this drastic move they would have consulted with the opposition and asked us to join them... I believe this call to recall the governor and others is strictly a political one.”

Reads: 1594


Tweet