St. John’s Antigua: Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, Lester Bird, is still threatening to take legal action over recent changes in electoral law that saw, among other changes, the diminution of power for the holder of the supervisor of elections post and the expansion of the Antigua & Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC) from five members to seven, according to a report in the Antigua Observer.
“Wake up Antigua, wake up. We can’t allow this thing to go through just like that. And it’s no point in us just calling another white march; we need something more fundamental than that. In any of the other countries, you think they could get away with that?” Bird commented Tuesday night, hours before Governor General, Dame Louise Lake Tack, swore in Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer’s nominees to ABEC.
The changes in legislation nullified the appointments to the Antigua & Barbuda Electoral Commission and paved the way for the clergy, the Employers’ Federation and the Trade Union Congress to join the government and opposition in nominating commissioners.
The Observer report said that Bird called on residents to take a stand to protect, not his legacy or that of his father, the late Sir VC Bird, but democracy and accused the ruling United Progressive Party of “robbing the people” and threatening “freedom and fairness of elections.”
“We are trying to get a senior counsel to file the necessary documents. We are in the process of trying to expedite, but we cannot and will not leave it alone,” Bird said in a call-in appearance on ZDK.
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