UPP scoffs at ABLP’s criticism of billboard

0
1118
- Advertisement -

The United Progressive Party (UPP) said the ruling Antigua Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) has “no moral ground” to condemn anyone responsible for a billboard, believed to have been erected by the UPP, which the ABLP says it finds offensive.
The billboard makes reference to the Prime Minister’s wealth and depicts his six-year-old son saying he is awaiting his family’s death to take over. The ABLP issued a statement last night, condemning it and the party is calling for it to be it removed.
But, the Chairman of the UPP, D. Gisele Isaac told OBSERVER media, “When the prime minister went down to Five Islands Primary and put money into those children’s hands, I did not hear from the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party that there was something wrong with it.”
The UPP official suggested that the party should have condemned the issuance of “red shirts” which were tossed over the fence to students at Princess Margaret School earlier this week.  The labour party’s colour of choice is red, and a number of the red campaign shirts were given out by individuals while they were driving past the school compound in Gambles.
Isaac added that the prime minister is the one who put his son in politics and the ABLP has “no moral ground” to condemn anything of this nature. She said, “I heard him [the six-year-old] making commercial endorsements about his mother. I heard he was singing ‘Dem Flap, Dem Flap, Dem Flap’ on Nomination Day. He put his child in politics. He ought not to have done that. He put his family in politics.”
Dem Flap is a song done by the prime minister and it suggests the UPP will lose the next general elections set for March 21, 2018. Speaking about the billboard, Isaac said she is not aware who erected it. The billboard bears the UPP logo and tells the electorate to vote for its candidate, Wilmoth Daniel.
It was put up earlier this week on North Street, Point which is in St. John’s City West, the same constituency for which Prime Minister Gaston Browne is the representative and where Daniel has also been nominated to run on election day. The UPP chairman said she’s not aware whether her colleague Daniel, also referred to as “Pitbull” had anything to do with it.
She said, “I found out about it like anybody else. The party did not put it up, that’s all I can tell you…k, I don’t know who put it up. I cannot speak for Wilmoth. But I know that as chairman of the party I can say without equivocation, I don’t know who put it up.”
The billboard features images of the prime minister and four family members all wearing crowns; his wife and candidate Maria Bird-Browne, his sons Gaston Browne III, and Prince Gaston, as well as the mother of Gaston Browne III, Hyacinth Harris.  It is captioned, “All for us, None for you.”
Beneath each family member’s picture is a comment and all are related to the topic of the prime minister’s family wealth. The comment beneath the prime minister’s six-year-old son is in dialect and says, “Me car wait fu dem dead fu tek over.” It also states, “Pitbull say ebree bady muss nyam.”
In a release yesterday, the ABLP called the billboard an “outrageous attack” on the prime minister’s family. The billboard also features an image of the UPP candidate. OBSERVER has been unable to reach Wilmoth Daniel by phone and he has not replied to a WhatsApp message sent to him this morning.

- Advertisement -