Opposition leader Allen Chastanet has strongly criticised the ruling Saint Lucia Labour (SLP) over approving a bill in Parliament to amend the constitution regarding the appointment of a Deputy Speaker.
He declared that the constitutional amendment was about making Deputy Speaker Jeremiah Norbert, the incumbent SLP MP for Micoud North, a Government Minister.
Chastanet told a news conference the change would allow someone from outside Parliament to become Deputy Speaker.
Jeremiah Norbert’s Deputy Speaker appointment occurred on August 17, 2021, after the SLP came to power.
The position had been vacant for five years.
“We saw that the government went to the House and were again true in style, hypocrites,” Allen Chastanet told a news conference Wednesday.
The United Workers Party (UWP) leader recalled that while the SLP was in opposition, it complained that he was not fulfilling the constitutional obligation to appoint Deputy Speaker.
But the Micoud South MP said the SLP never took the matter to court.
Chastanet also recalled that the SLP accused him of wanting to make every UWP MP a Minister.
He said under section 36 of the constitution, the Deputy Speaker must be elected and cannot be a Cabinet member or a Parliamentary Secretary.
Chastanet quoted the section saying that it was the responsibility of the House to elect a Deputy Speaker.
“They went to the House and instead of amending it to say, if they wanted to, that the Deputy Speaker must come from the Government side rather than from the House and also that if, in fact, a person vacates the position that you have by the next sitting of the House to have somebody appointed, instead what do they do? They went and amended the constitution to allow them to bring a Deputy Speaker from outside the House,” the former Prime Minister told reporters.
“A stranger to the House. And as we pointed out, there is no other parliament in the Southern Caribbean that does that,” Chastanet told reporters.
smh a bunch of evil men bending and changing the rules to suit their own agendas
Well politicians are the white-collar criminals in every so-called democratic country. They will cry like a beggar for your votes and thief from you in broad daylight, bareface as well. The SLP will do what is best to suit them and so will be the UWP if they took office in next GE.When you do look at politics from a medical standpoint it can unanimously be considered a pandemic. Reason being it sends one set of the population into depression and anxiety and another set into hypertension and diabetic.
The opportunistic charlatan, Allan Chastanet, is at it again. The man has no shame. He squandered the resouces of the nation during his disastrous term in office and now he is posturing as an economist, engineer and moralist. Chasternet, the emperor has no clothes.
Chastanet is a pathetically incompetent opposition leader who has no respect for decorum and the constitution of St. Lucia. Chastanet, how do you change a clause or section of the constitution? Convention says it is done through a constitutional amendment. And this is exactly what the SLP has done. Instead of your flagrant disregard for the Deputy Speaker clause of the constitution, the SLP with wit, intelligence and courage opted to change that section. Chastanet did not have the brain and political acumen to know what he does not know. In short, Chastanet is a delusional fantasist.
Chas, you need to be educated, you are too feeble in your thoughts. You have to understand you are chasing the educated UWPS from the party. We are ashamed of some of the things you are saying.
It is concerning when the Constitution of a country can be changed so easily to fit the whims and fancies of politicians. Very concerning. In the meantime, the carnage continues and no solution to that.
Sometimes I wonder about the comments made by our highly intelligent idiots. Chastanet it seems was supposed to ask one of his ten elected members to be the Deputy Speaker of the House but the SLP is unable to get one of their fifteen elected members to do so. Are some of us being paid to be stupid? Wow!!!
Hypocrites is too light a word for them Allen. Now if you had said bobolists, thugs, miscreants, deviant, law bending, constitution abusing, self-serving faux socialists it would have been a better description.
Allen Chastanet, your constituency needs to attentions, roads are in terrible conditions, address this matter 1st.