Bunting brands Holness a self-serving coward
Published:Wednesday | May 22, 2024 | 12:14 AMAdrian Frater/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Opposition Senator Peter Bunting has labelled Prime Minister Andrew Holness a self-serving hypocrite and coward for seeking to make an issue out of the dual citizenship controversy involving Opposition Leader Mark Golding, saying he previously supported dual citizens serving in the nation’s Parliament.
“This is absolutely self-serving and cowardly,” Bunting said in dismissing the prime minister’s current stance on the issue, saying it is motivated solely by politics.
“The prime minister has been on record from 2011 supporting dual citizens being in Parliament … . The Constitution only requires you to be a Commonwealth citizen and has no issues with dual citizenship with other Commonwealth countries,” Bunting told The Gleaner on Tuesday.
“So, this sudden creation that the prime minister has come up with is both self-serving and opportunistic … . Why would it apply to just a single person?” ... The real truth is that he would love to avoid the backsiding that is coming for him next year … . That is the real motivation,” added Bunting, hinting at the next general election, which is due by September 2025.
Bunting further argued that if Golding’s position is considered sensitive, why is the same standard is not being used against other key stakeholders holding sensitive positions.
“If we going to talk about persons in sensitive positions not having potentially divided loyalty but have a dual citizenship, then should we not look at all Cabinet ministers, certainly a minister of foreign affairs, certainly a minister of national security? Should we not look at sensitive public positions ... a chief of defence staff of the army, a commissioner of police, for example, a director of elections? And I think it is already covered in the Representation of The People Act – the director of elections,” argued Bunting, a former minister of national security and the leader of opposition business in the Senate.
“This is a self-serving hypocritical way of trying to target one person when the prime minister well knows that there are many others in Parliament now with dual Commonwealth citizenship, many others who have served with distinction over the years with dual Commonwealth citizenship, for him to now try and make a political issue, as I said, is hypocritical and self-serving,” he told The Gleaner.
Bunting said that if Holness is sincere about his current stance, he is challenging him to declare all his parliamentarians’ status regarding dual citizenship.
“If he genuinely believes in it, he should lead from the front and say this is the status of all government parliamentarians, but the fact that he has contorted himself to create this rule, which is incurable, shows the real objective is to try and get away from his opponent, who is leading him in the polls now and on this trajectory, is going to give him a sound beating in this next general election.”