Speaking on Kairi’s Heng Program on Tuesday morning Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said everything should be in place by next week for the election of a new head of state.

“Possible by the 17th of September we should have everything in place and elect a new president,” he said.

Skerrit’s statement came against the background of the Opposition United Workers Party’s (UWP) vow not to participate in the process to elect the new president on the grounds that it is constitutionally flawed. “We will not take part in that wrong process,” Political Leader of the UWP, Edison James, said at a public meeting on Monday evening.

PM Skerrit has accused James of being the one complicating the process for a new president. “If you remove Edison James from all of this, everything will be alright,” he said. “Edison James is a representative of controversy.”

According to the Prime Minister consultation on a new president between himself and Opposition Leader Hector John was progressing fine until James stepped in. “Mister John came … we sat in my office, we discussed and so forth, afterwards he said it was the best consultation he had … he is happy … he has his candidate and he looks forward to going to the parliament to elect a new president,” he said. “All of a sudden Edison James called him and told him,’ look let me talk about this matter from henceforth and anything you are going to say on this matter, I have to write for you because what you saying there doesn’t make sense. You cannot be saying that you had good consultation with Skerrit’.”

Word surfaced recently that the country’s current President, Dr. Nicholas Liverpool, was to demit office early reportedly due to ill health. A special sitting of parliament was convened when a common nominee could not be agreed upon during consultation between John and Skerrit. Deadline for nominees from both the government and the opposition was Friday, September 7 but the UWP did not respond after declaring the entire process “null and void.”