'I will not be swayed' - Hay-Webster stands firm despite ongoing criticism from former party
Published:Friday | July 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Beleaguered but defiant, Sharon Hay-Webster, the member of parliament (MP) for South Central St Catherine, yesterday declared she was not daunted by a battering on her character by the leadership of the People's National Party (PNP).
"I will not be swayed by whatever pressure is applied by the PNP," asserted Hay-Webster, hours after the party's general secretary, Peter Bunting, told supporters that she had a credibility problem.
In fact, Hay-Webster flatly declared she expected to be assailed.
"Anything that they want to do to try and discredit me, they are going to do," she told The Gleaner. "This entire matter has never been properly coordinated within the party."
With PNP officers showing no sign of letting up, Hay-Webster said she expected to be confronted by (political) obstacles as she moves to play her new role as an independent candidate.
"It won't be easy, but it has never been easy … . I don't worry about being pushed out. If they push me out, they will have the public to face on that … do they want that?"
Emanating from her refusal to resign as MP from the PNP-dominated constituency, Bunting told Hay-Webster's constituents on Wednesday night: "It became clear that there was a complete loss of credibility and trust at the leadership level and among her colleagues."
But yesterday Hay-Webster countered, sternly claiming that Bunting had no knowledge of the circumstances around the dual-citizenship issue that influenced her decision to resign from the PNP.
No meeting
She told The Gleaner that, as general secretary, Bunting had never seen the need to convene a meeting to work out a proper solution to the issues impacting on her.
"Everything has been piecemeal, so there must be a credibility issue from his perspective," she asserted. "The general secretary should be able to speak to any aspect of my case. Can he?"
She added: "You ask him (Bunting) for any of the details of my case and he cannot give it because he has never sat with me and sought to ascertain anything, so it's easy for him to say I have a credibility issue because he does not know the facts."
Singling out party Chairman Robert Pickersgill and the general secretary, Hay-Webster lamented that no single group of persons had ever sat down with her.
"No one came to me and said, 'And these are the facts, these are the issues, this is how it is going to be handled'," she added.
Hay-Webster, who was sent into South Central St Catherine as regional secretary to mediate in the aftermath of the resignation of Heather Robinson from the constituency in 1996, lamented that the PNP had changed for the worse over the years.
"It's a whole new thing and I don't know that the party per se was prepared for this," she declared. "The party per se is not properly organised and that's the truth, and this made me realise that I must resign from the party."
Asked whether there was any truth to PNP President Portia Simpson Miller's suggestion that the party had provided legal advice, Hay-Webster said: "Yes, they did, but they (the lawyers) were also pressured to step aside because what they wanted was my full resignation so that they can have a by-election. I am not giving that to them."
Case in court
She maintained that the case, which was distinctly different from other dual-citizenship matters that had been ventilated, was in the court and would facilitate the legal course.
"I am sorry, the matter needs to be aired and I have different counsel now, so not a problem," Hay-Webster said.
A staunch supporter of Dr Peter Phillips in the last two PNP presidential elections, Hay-Webster admitted she was disappointed with the people to whom she had extended her loyalties over the years.
"Where I had loyalties to people within the movement, that was very clear and public. I have not accepted that in return, but so it is," she said.
Hay-Webster told The Gleaner she had not been approached by the Jamaica Labour Party. "I love my work as a representative. That's what I committed to and, so long as I have the opportunity to do it as an independent member, I will do it, but I have not been approached."