This news article is a production distributed through Caribbean News Service. It is made freely available to your media and we encourage publishing and redistribution, giving credit to Caribbean News Service (CNS).
ROSEAU, Dominica, Nov 23 2015 – Opposition Leader Lennox Linton is calling on Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit to say whether or not his government has been compromised by outside influence in the nomination of Baroness Patricia Scotland for the post of Commonwealth Secretary General.
Scotland and Sir Ronald Sanders of Antigua and Barbuda are the two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nominees for the post to replace the 74-year-old former Indian foreign minister Kameslh Sharma. The election for a new secretary general will take place in Malta during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference this week.
Leaders of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) who met here last week said it was necessary for the region to have one candidate going into the election and urged the two OECS member states to agree on a single candidate.
Linton in article, posted in the Dominica Vibes website Monday, said that Dominica was sending a mixed signal to the region with Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Francine Baron saying that Dominica remains fully supportive of its nominee.
Linton said that Dominica has benefited in recent years for example, from CARICOM consensus on the appointment of Dominicans to the top positions at the Pan American Health Organization and CARICOM. “Yet, in the interest of a Dominican by birth whose life, work, accomplishments and dominant nationality are all absolutely British, Mr. Skerrit is fighting against CARICOM consensus on one candidate for top Commonwealth job.”
Linton said that several CARICOM leaders who “spontaneously contributed millions to the recovery and reconstruction of Dominica following the passage of Tropical Storm Erika, do not agree with Mr Skerrit’s choice”.
He said Baroness Patricia Scotland of Asthal has never lived in or worked in or for any member of the CARICOM grouping and that she is a sitting member of the British House of Lords and has ignored requests from CARICOM leaders to resign from that position in order to merit consideration as a CARICOM nominee
“Even as the CARICOM leaders are trying to leverage the grouping’s collective strength in a single nominee, Skerrit’s candidate is revving up her formidable propaganda campaign machine against her competitor, when she well knows that the honourable course of action now available to her in the public interest of CARICOM is to step aside.”
Linton said that if Prime Minister Skerrit cannot align himself with the consensus position in CARICOM and withdraw his nominee before Malta, “then it is reasonable to conclude that as a CARICOM leader, he is selfishly acting under the influence of interests external, and contrary to, the collective wisdom of CARICOM leadership.
