The Governor-General and the then opposition Team Unity had been at odds with his role in the non-tabling of the Motion of No Confidence, and the perceived disrespect of members of the opposition Team Unity alliance in the two years prior to the February 16 General Elections, which was won by the alliance.
It is against this background that the accusation of manipulation and disrespect of the governor general is made.
“We submit to our citizens, at home and abroad, to the people of CARICOM, the Commonwealth and the world that the reason is that the prime minister, Dr. Timothy Harris, and his attorney general, Senator Vincent Byron, have manipulated the circumstances, which have led to His Excellency Sir Edmund Lawrence being absent from the ceremonial opening of the Parliament and from being allowed to deliver the traditional Throne Speech,” Liburd stated on a live radio program aired on Freedom FM.
She inferred that the prime minister and his government has descended to a “low level” in order “to carry out their own petty political agenda”, in what she termed “acts of political scheming and disrespect”.
Liburd claimed that the prime minister and the attorney general had disrupted the long-held tradition of the Governor General reading the Throne Speech, and described the situation as “despicable”, and demanded an end to the lack of respect.
“This intimidation and victimization of our Governor General must stop, and we call on the members of government to show respect to the Office of the Governor General,” the Labour Party chairperson said.
Liburd was just as furious over the closure of the Electoral Office, which is under investigation for alleged irregularities during the 2015 General Elections. She said that the closure was denying residents the right to register to vote.
“The St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party declares this as highly undemocratic, and signals its intention to pursue this matter to the fullest extent on behalf of the people of St. Kitts and Nevis,” said Liburd, as she suggested no acceptable reason has been given for the closure of the Electoral Office, although the government has clearly indicated that the office was under investigation for irregularities during the last General Elections.
Attorney General Byron said Tuesday, at the Prime Minister’s press conference, that the investigation is winding down. He said, “We have had professional assistance from London, Legal Technologies, a company involved in good governance. It has been here looking at the databases that were involved in the voters list. We have also had to engage the company from Barbados, which had installed the software that managed the Electoral Office.
Over the last week, their representative, another company out of the Dominican Republic, has been here at the Electoral Office, and has now given a clean bill of health to the computer systems,” Byron said, and indicated that the system is now being brought back online.
Liburd, providing an explanation of her own suggested that inexperienced persons corrupted the system after the closure of the office, which required expertise to correct the situation.
Liburd also insinuated that the closed Electoral Office could be facilitating the addition of names to the voters’ list to “to bolster the federal governments’ and the NIA’s chances of winning future elections.