KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC—Science, Energy, Telecommunication, and Transport Minister Daryl Vaz has dismissed Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s decision to renounce his British citizenship.
Golding Sunday announced that he would be revoking his British citizenship, indicating that he is doing so after considering the public’s views on the issue.
“Comrades, we have reached a point now where we have some data on the views of the public on this matter,
“I do not want my status to be something which could hold the party back, impact the party negatively, or any of our candidates who are on the way to victory in difficult seats which we are looking to win to have any kind of disadvantage because of my status,” Golding told a People’s National Party (PNP) meeting.
But in a statement, Vaz said that the move has come “too little, too late” and that it’s unacceptable that Golding has not given a timetable regarding when he will act on his stated intention to renounce.
Vaz said it was a national disgrace that Golding, who aspires to be head of the Jamaica government, hesitated for approximately 40 days since admitting to his dual citizenship “on the issue of whether to choose Jamaican citizenship only.”
The senior government minister said it’s instructive that Golding only announced his intention to renounce after “several calls for his resignation, weeks of obfuscation, and two years of not coming clean with the Jamaican people on his status.”
He said also that Golding announced his intention to renounce after the possibility of a parliamentary motion and court action was made public.
“The sequence of events sends the unmistakable signal that the British PNP President is not fully committed to Jamaica but has acted politically expediently,” Vaz said, adding that Jamaicans “will not forget the untenable and incurable hesitation.”
Vaz also demands that Golding indicate whether he misled the country in relation to possessing a valid British passport. He points to a comment in 2022 in which Golding allegedly stated he no longer maintains his British passport and recent statements that his British passport expires this year.
In May, responding to questions about his citizenship, Golding said that the queries were politically motivated. He acknowledged then that he got a British passport as a child but stressed that he travels on a Jamaican passport.
“I was born Jamaican and have a Jamaican passport. I’ve never hidden that my father, who came to Jamaica from the UK, got me a British passport when I was a young child,” he said, noting that Jamaicans who hold citizenship for non-Commonwealth countries should be allowed to seek political office.
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