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Following weeks of contention since the nomination of Dr Vince Henderson as the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) nominee in the Grand Bay by-election, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit finally broke his silence on the matter on the eve of the election.<\/p>\n
Since his nomination, there have been mounting calls for Dr Henderson to be barred from the by-election as opposers say he is in breach of\u00a0 the qualifying criteria for contesting an election for membership in the House of\u00a0 Assembly since.<\/p>\n
As of nomination day, November 9,\u00a0 many claimed that Dr Henderson had not been recalled, nor had he resigned from his position as Ambassador of the\u00a0 Commonwealth of Dominica to the United States of America (USA) and the\u00a0 Organization of American States (OAS), positions which he has held\u00a0 since 2016.<\/p>\n
Those who contested Dr Henderson\u2019s validity in the election included Opposition Leader Lennox Linton, four citizens who dubbed themselves \u201cconcerned citizens\u201d and newly formed civic group the National Joint Action Movement (NJAM), who all requested an investigation in the DLP\u2019s candidacy but to no avail.<\/p>\n
However, in his first public statement on the matter, Skerrit heavily denied claims that his party\u2019s nominee made any false or untrue declaration with regards to his candidacy in the Grand Bay by-election.<\/p>\n
According to the Prime Minister, Dr. Henderson was duly nominated in complete conformity with the constitution and the provisions of Dominica’s laws.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey recognize they could not\u00a0 question Dr. Henderson’s experience, they cannot question his association with the Dominica Labour Party and they cannot question his contribution to Dominica. So what do they do, they go and seek to create some kind of confusion that he is not qualified to contest the election because he is Dominica’s Ambassador to the United States,\u201d the DLP leader stated a Kairi FM talk show host.<\/p>\n
Skerrit further stated that Henderson has not received a salary from his government since 2019 which according to him further legitimizes his nomination.<\/p>\n
However, according to the Prime Minister,\u00a0 \u201ceven if he was receiving a salary from the government of Dominica as an Ambassador, this would not have disqualified him to be a candidate for Dominica Labour Party or for any party and we must not act surprised, when these guys behave that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DLP leader said, he anticipated such opposition by his party\u2019s opponents and dubbed it a ploy to \u201ccreate confusion in the minds of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Dr Henderson himself spoke on plans for the community of Grand Bay during the same talkshow, he refrained from commenting on his eligibility as a candidate in the by-election as he labelled the claims as \u201cnothing from a nothing party.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following weeks of contention since the nomination of Dr Vince Henderson as the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) nominee in the Grand Bay by-election, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit finally broke his silence on the matter on the eve of the election….","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":277880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,77,235,9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-court-law","category-homepage","category-homepage-carousel","category-news","category-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n