Tweet
Dabdoub bashes JLP; vows to take election case to Privy Council
ERICA VIRTUE, Observer writer
virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com
Friday, May 02, 2008
aAbe Dabdoub (left) shares in pre-luncheon discussions with Rotary Club of Kingston president Donald Reynolds (centre) and Rotarian Robert MacMillan yesterday, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)
ABE Dabdoub yesterday launched an offensive against the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), declaring that no amount of threats and intimidation from the party would deter him from going to the Privy Council, if the Court of Appeal upheld Chief Justice Zalia McCalla's ruling in the landmark citizenship case involving himself and Daryl Vaz.
Dabdoub, the guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Kingston weekly luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel yesterday, said Prime Minister Bruce Golding and the JLP's general secretary, Karl Samuda, should shoulder the blame for nominating 'so many ineligible individuals' with American citizenship as candidates in the 2007 general elections.
"Recently the prime minister indicated that he was not aware of the disqualification set out in our constitution, nor that some of the candidates from his party had foreign citizenship.
He said he knew of only one candidate with a green card. I will refrain from calling him a liar. I will say, however, that I find it extremely difficult to accept that a gentleman who has been an advocate for constitutional change in Jamaica is not acquainted with the constitution that he wishes to change.," Dabdoub said.
No stranger to court and election petitions, Dabdoub, a lawyer, told Rotarians that he was not frightened by Golding's threats of calling a general election if the Appeal Court rules against the JLP, thereby reducing its slim majority in the House from 32 to 31, but with a speaker who cannot vote, in the 60-member legislature.
Just over a month ago Chief Justice Zalia McCalla ruled that Vaz, who polled 6,966 votes in last year's general elections, to Dabdoub's 6,066, was not eligible to sit in the house by virtue of his American citizenship which he said was acquired via his mother. However, the chief justice ruled that a by-election be held, a ruling which did not go down well with Dabdoub, who subsequently filed an appeal.
Dabdoub said, too, that he was disappointed with the prime minister's characterisation of the situation as a legal technicality.
"First of all the constitution is not based on a technicality. It is the supreme law," said Dabdoub.
He said: "My actions are not based on political expediency as there are persons of the view that this action may precipitate an early election for which they say my party is not ready. I intend to proceed regardless of the political consequences for either myself or my political party, because in the final analysis the sole victor can only be the Jamaican people."
Dabdoub, as a candidate for the JLP in St Catherine North Eastern in 1997, ousted the People's National Party's (PNP) Phyllis Mitchell from the House of Representatives, via an election petition. In that election, he polled 4,713 votes to Mitchell's 4,750. He went to court, and asked that the court void the results on the basis of voting irregularity in some polling divisions and declare him the winner.
ERICA VIRTUE, Observer writer
virtuee@jamaicaobserver.com
Friday, May 02, 2008
aAbe Dabdoub (left) shares in pre-luncheon discussions with Rotary Club of Kingston president Donald Reynolds (centre) and Rotarian Robert MacMillan yesterday, at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel. (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)
ABE Dabdoub yesterday launched an offensive against the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), declaring that no amount of threats and intimidation from the party would deter him from going to the Privy Council, if the Court of Appeal upheld Chief Justice Zalia McCalla's ruling in the landmark citizenship case involving himself and Daryl Vaz.
Dabdoub, the guest speaker at the Rotary Club of Kingston weekly luncheon at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel yesterday, said Prime Minister Bruce Golding and the JLP's general secretary, Karl Samuda, should shoulder the blame for nominating 'so many ineligible individuals' with American citizenship as candidates in the 2007 general elections.
"Recently the prime minister indicated that he was not aware of the disqualification set out in our constitution, nor that some of the candidates from his party had foreign citizenship.
He said he knew of only one candidate with a green card. I will refrain from calling him a liar. I will say, however, that I find it extremely difficult to accept that a gentleman who has been an advocate for constitutional change in Jamaica is not acquainted with the constitution that he wishes to change.," Dabdoub said.
No stranger to court and election petitions, Dabdoub, a lawyer, told Rotarians that he was not frightened by Golding's threats of calling a general election if the Appeal Court rules against the JLP, thereby reducing its slim majority in the House from 32 to 31, but with a speaker who cannot vote, in the 60-member legislature.
Just over a month ago Chief Justice Zalia McCalla ruled that Vaz, who polled 6,966 votes in last year's general elections, to Dabdoub's 6,066, was not eligible to sit in the house by virtue of his American citizenship which he said was acquired via his mother. However, the chief justice ruled that a by-election be held, a ruling which did not go down well with Dabdoub, who subsequently filed an appeal.
Dabdoub said, too, that he was disappointed with the prime minister's characterisation of the situation as a legal technicality.
"First of all the constitution is not based on a technicality. It is the supreme law," said Dabdoub.
He said: "My actions are not based on political expediency as there are persons of the view that this action may precipitate an early election for which they say my party is not ready. I intend to proceed regardless of the political consequences for either myself or my political party, because in the final analysis the sole victor can only be the Jamaican people."
Dabdoub, as a candidate for the JLP in St Catherine North Eastern in 1997, ousted the People's National Party's (PNP) Phyllis Mitchell from the House of Representatives, via an election petition. In that election, he polled 4,713 votes to Mitchell's 4,750. He went to court, and asked that the court void the results on the basis of voting irregularity in some polling divisions and declare him the winner.