Teco Lake: ‘I did not write that letter’

The Antigua Barbuda Labour Party’s Member of Parliament for the St John’s Rural South Constituency has said that he never played a role in the drafting of a letter withdrawing his candidacy from the upcoming general elections.
Eustace “Teco” Lake has also indirectly accused his party colleagues of fraud.
The letter, dated November 26, 2015, purported that the sitting MP was withdrawing because of poor health. The missive also stated that he [Lake] pledged his full support for the replacement candidate, Daryl Matthew.
The unsigned document was addressed to Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
“I did not write any letter to that effect. I am not saying that a letter was not written, but I never wrote that letter,” Lake said during an interview on the Snakepit programme on Monday night.
Lake, who is also minister of Works And Housing, asserted that the letter came from the prime minister’s office, but he is not able to say whether it was drafted by the prime minister.
He answered in the affirmative when the host of the programme, Algernon “Serpent” Watts asked whether he [Lake] considered the matter surrounding the letter a case of fraud because he had nothing to do with a letter which purportedly came from him and never instructed anyone so to do.
“I did not think about it that way, but very much so. I really did not think about it the way you just put it,” Lake said.
“One of the things I learnt coming back home [to Antigua] is that the political scene in this country is twisted, there is nothing clean, and you have to fall in line,” Lake said.
During the sitting MP’s absence abroad for medical treatment, the ruling ABLP wasted no time in throwing its support behind Daryl Matthew, its newest senator, who was chosen to replace Lake as the party’s candidate for the St John’s Rural South seat.
(More in today’s Daily Observer)