Threats of Resignation
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- Parent Category: Oct 2011
- Category: Week ending Oct 08th, 2011
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EDITORIAL
On Friday 30th September, 2011, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas delivered a short national address in which he announced his decision to inform the Governor General of certain changes to his Cabinet.
As far as THE NEW TODAY is concerned the changes as announced needed to be much deeper and far-reaching with general elections less than two years away.
The Prime Minister has to remove a few of the Senators and appoint a new lot who will be considered as potential candidates for the next poll in order to profile them before the country.
PM Thomas and NDC have to address the future of the likes of Karl Hood, George Prime, Michael Church and a few others in the northern part of the country who will be hard-pressed to return as Parliamentarians whenever the day of reckoning is at hand.
The word within NDC circles is that Public Utilities Minister, Joseph Gilbert did not take too kindly to being reassigned to another portfolio and threatened to resign both as a member of the government and as the party’s elected Member of Parliament for St. Patrick West.
If he had carried through with the threat, the Prime Minister would have been forced to call a by-election for the vacant seat at a most inappropriate time.
If there is any truth to this threat then it is clear to this newspaper that Minister Gilbert who studied in Cuba and might have been exposed to communism in the classroom is not prepared to accept the Westminister Parliamentary democratic system.
The established norm in the system is that Ministers serve at the pleasure of the Prime Minister and it is he who is mandated by the Grenada Constitution to advise the Governor-General on the persons to be appointed to serve in the Cabinet of Ministers.
We all must recall the November 2010 episode when the leader of the so-called Rebel Group nearly short-circuited the administration’s tenure in office by hesitating to take up his new position as Minister of Tourism and Civil Aviation together with the female MP for the South.
Minister Gilbert should have come around to recognising by now that it is the Prime Minister alone who has the authority to ring the changes in his government. He does not have to consult with anyone because that is his right.
If Gilbert or any other of the so-called “rebels” happened to have been the Prime Minister of this country, what would have been their reaction to any of their subjects challenging their decision to effect Cabinet changes?
Those who are not prepared to accept the Westminister system of government must be honest enough to raise their hands and move out of the way. It is as simple as that.
The communist system or an abridgement of it by those in our midst, who do not confirm to the Parliamentary system of government, cannot and will not be able to work in Grenada and the Eastern Caribbean.
So it begs the question - why the continued hostility by the so-called Group of Rebels to the Prime Minister and his government? What do they hope to achieve by their indifferent behaviour?
These two questions are being asked out of a clear recognition that none of them including the so-called leader of the pack, the Minister of Tourism, is seen by anyone worth an ounce of salt in the country, as an adequate, much less qualified replacement for Prime Minister Thomas as Head of the Government.
Which one of them is crazy enough to go to the electorate and ask Grenadians to vote for them as Prime Minister? It will be ‘99 all over - not a single seat for them.
If the truth be told, the disgruntled members of the Cabinet admit privately in their quarters that they cannot go into an election without the same Tillman Thomas as leader of the pack.
The “rebels” cannot be trusted. And the sooner these disgruntled elements recognise that the sentiments on the ground are not in their favour, it will be better for everyone.
How many of them realise that their political shelf lives are coming to a close since their expiry date is just around the corner?
The misguided elements in the government have spent all of the last three years dividing and factionalising the administration, thus breathing a sigh of hope in the opposition of returning to office.
Should these people be included as candidates on a Congress ticket next time around? Many of them have portrayed themselves as very anti of their own government and with a lot of arrogance too.
With not much time to go before the five year term expires, the Prime Minister has to put a lot in place to correct “the errors” made and to position rightly the little talent he has in his Cabinet of Ministers to bring to reality his new agenda as announced a few days ago.
While the few misguided elements in the government have been engaged in non-productive and non-progressive acts, the Prime Minister and his small inner core give the impression that they remain very focused on the job at hand.
It would appear that the Prime Minister is trying hard to make things work, but based on the current construct of his Cabinet, it is not possible for him to do much with what he has to work with. He needs a new team of trustworthy and committed persons.
In the same way someone once told the New National Party (NNP) when in government between 1995 and 2008 that a pot of soup is never improved by mere stirring, the same now applies to the NDC.
If some of the “rebels” do not go at the appropriate time then the whole team might be thrown out by the electorate due to distrust and fear of seeing history repeating itself once again in the Spice Isle.
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