Prime Minister Stuart said that if there was indeed an attempt to derail his Government, it clearly had not worked and “certain consequences will have to follow.

“If I understand history at all, if a coup is attempted and it succeeds, the person against whom the coup was aimed usually pays for it with his neck. If the coup fails, the plotters and those who were trying to execute it pay for it with their necks,” the Prime Minister told the SUNDAY NATION newspaper.

“If I understand history at all, if a coup is attempted and it succeeds, the person against whom the coup was aimed usually pays for it with his neck. If the coup fails, the plotters and those who were trying to execute it pay for it with their necks,” he said philosophically.

His Finance Minister Chris Sinckler, who has been touted as a possible prime minister here, has publicly dissociated himself from wanting Stuart’s job, but acknowledged that he and 10 of his Government colleagues were seeking an “urgent audience” with the Prime Minister.

Sinckler in a SUNDAY SUN interview confirmed that a letter had indeed been drafted with the names of the 11 DLP members affixed and for immediate dispatch to the Prime Minister.

He also said that members of the group were united in the quest to get the Prime Minister to meet “with respect to perceived weaknesses in our leadership of the country and a sense of drift and inertia arising therefrom”.

But in an attempt to possibly explain why some of the 11 MPs had issued strong denials while threatening the NATION newspaper with legal action, he said unfortunately the letter was leaked to newspaper with “only about two or three people [having] actually seen the draft”.

Meanwhile, political scientist Tennyson Joseph says the Minister of Finance and the Leader of Government Business were positions critical to the security of the Prime Minister.

“I also think he has to move now to take control of his party, because I’m not sure the people in the party are proactive.

“Some of the key posts aren’t necessarily Stuart loyalists, and many of the people in the key posts in the party are in fact the David Thompson clique,” he added.