KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has promised that the issue of candidates being elected to Parliament while having dual citizenship will be taken to court as the campaign continues here for the November 27 general election.
Addressing supporters of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) on Tuesday night, Gonsalves, who is seeking an unprecedented sixth consecutive term as head of government, confirmed that the ULP had attempted to prevent the leader of the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), Dr. Godwin Friday and the party’s East Kingstown candidate, Fitz Bramble, from being nominated as candidates for the elections because of their Canadian citizenship.
Friday, who is also the Opposition Leader, is seeking election to a sixth consecutive term as the parliamentary representative for the Northern Grenadines, which he has been representing since 2001. Bramble is seeking a second five-year term in office.
Both Bramble and Friday were born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines but obtained Canadian citizenship as adults.
Speaking on his weekly radio programme here on Wednesday, Gonsalves told radio listeners that the two opposition legislators “have a huge problem” and that he defended the decision of “registered electors” to object to their nomination.
He said section 26 of the Constitution states that you are disqualified if you are “by your own voluntary act, under the acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign power or state, that foreign power being Canada.
“That is repeated word for word in the Representation of the People’s Act at section 35,” Gonsalves said, adding that this provision, along with another one about a Commonwealth citizen, had been considered in a case involving the former St. Kitts-Nevis prime minister Dr Denzil Douglas, who had been granted a diplomatic passport by Dominica a few years ago.
“The court held that the mere possession of the passport, all be it a diplomatic one, pointed clearly to an act, voluntarily by Denzil Douglas, to be under acknowledgement of allegiance…obedience or adherence of a foreign power or state,” Gonsalves said.
Gonsalves, an attorney, said before the Douglas case, there were varied legal opinions in the Caribbean, but “in our jurisdiction in 2020, the Court of Appeal determined that the mere holding of the passport, not even citizenship, indicated this.
“So the law has now been made crystal clear…but you would have to have evidence,” Gonsalves said, noting that by his own statement made in Parliament recently, Dr. Friday has admitted to having the Canadian passport proudly in his front pocket.
Gonsalves said in the case of Bramble, while he did not make a similar statement in Parliament, “there are witnesses that we have that Bramble told people he is a Canadian citizen and he has a Canadian passport”.
Gonsalves said he has also been informed that when the Returning Officer interviewed Bramble during Monday’s Nomination Day, “he admitted that he is a citizen of Canada”.
On Monday, unsigned documents began circulating on social media, addressed to the returning officers in the Northern Grenadians and East Kingstown, claiming that the nomination of the two opposition candidates had been challenged.
Friday later appeared in a video on social media saying that his nomination was successful.
“Of course, my opponents tried some dirty tricks. They wanted to knock me off the ballot. They wanted to try to get me out of the way before you had a chance to vote. But it didn’t succeed,” he said.
Friday, a lawyer said he and his legal team pushed back against the efforts to block his nomination.
“The nomination process is complete. We proceed to the elections on the 27th. If you want to beat me, come on the 27th, that is the day that you can come and try to knock me out, and you ain’t going to succeed, because that is the day of reckoning, and we shall overcome, and the people of this constituency and the country will have a change that we so desperately need,” he said.
Friday, speaking at an NDP rally earlier this week, said he had thought the “old story” about his citizenship was something of the past and had “gone to bed”.
“I wasn’t born in America, like some of them, and I chose to come and represent the people of my constituency. For me, it’s not a sacrifice. It is a duty. It’s an obligation, because I got everything I have from my constituency, from growing up in Bequia,” he told party supporters.
Friday said he called Bramble, who told him that his nomination was also challenged. Gonsalves, speaking at the ULP event on Tuesday night, said, “We did something which frightened the NDP.
“There are objectors to Friday and Bramble because they are Canadian citizens, and they can’t get away from the law and the Constitution,” said Gonsalves, adding that the Returning Officer had registered the two opposition candidates, saying they would leave the matter for the court to decide.
“But there’s a reckoning, and a reckoning will come in the law courts,” Gonsalves said, urging voters in East Kingstown and the Northern Grenadines not to waste their vote.
“Do not waste your vote. Because you’re voting for people who, when the case is brought against them, because they are Canadians, by their own act, they are having an acknowledgement of allegiance and adherence to a foreign power, a state known as Canada.”
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