PM Roosevelt Skerrit: If UWP Had Leader They Would Contest Elections

Dominica: The United Workers Party’s (UWP) is only staying out of the December 6 general elections because they are not ready, revealed Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.

With the UWP’s leadership race reportedly narrowing to three front runners, many of its supporters are hopeful the new political leader will reverse what that party’s insiders are labelling as former leader Lennox Linton’s impulsive stance to boycott the elections.

In a radio interview on Monday, Linton disclosed that despite his formal resignation with immediate effect as the UWP’s political leader in October, he still wrote a letter to President Charles Savarin this week, expressing discontent with the calling of the general elections.

Skerrit chided the confusion within the Opposition Party’s ranks, asserting that they do not have a single individual in that party who can command the interest, far less support, of the people of this country.

“If they had a leader, they would be contesting these elections. If they had a presence on the ground in constituencies, they would be contesting these elections,” Skerrit said at the Dominica Labour Party’s (DLP) rally in Colihaut on Tuesday night.

Skerrit criticised the UWP for “creating an artificial crisis in this country to save face.”

“An election has been called; step into the ring and face your opponent!” He charged, as he recalled the DLP’s own victory in the polls when the UWP’s then leader Edison James called the 2000 snap elections on New Year’s Eve.

Still reeling from Linton’s sudden resignation, the UWP remained inactive and voiceless on matters of national importance, having failed to release a statement expressing empathy to residents in the East and South-Eastern districts of Dominica after last week’s deadly floods and landslides wreaked havoc.