Richard Lord

Min­utes af­ter Jack Warn­er an­nounced his in­ten­tion to con­test the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said his re­quest to be re­turned as an MP on a UNC tick­et was dis­re­spect­ful to the par­ty.She ad­mit­ted too that keep­ing him in the Cab­i­net would have caused ir­repara­ble dam­age to the Gov­ern­ment, not­ing he re­signed from the Cab­i­net "on his own vo­li­tion" be­cause of mat­ters in­volv­ing him which are still in the pub­lic do­main.

She said those mat­ters re­lat­ed to Warn­er's pre­vi­ous po­si­tion as a vice pres­i­dent of world foot­ball gov­ern­ing body Fi­fa.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "To date he has not pro­vid­ed com­pelling ev­i­dence to re­fute the al­le­ga­tions. "You can­not sep­a­rate those mat­ters from his po­si­tion as a min­is­ter, since it has the po­ten­tial to do ir­repara­ble dam­age to the Gov­ern­ment and the im­age of our coun­try."The PM said Warn­er's de­ci­sion to re­sign was tak­en uni­lat­er­al­ly."No one asked him to re­sign. Rec­og­niz­ing the mag­ni­tude of what was re­vealed in the (Con­ca­caf) ethics com­mit­tee re­port from Pana­ma, he of­fered his res­ig­na­tion as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and I ac­cept­ed, as is my right."

The PM con­tin­ued: "Uni­lat­er­al­ly, he re­turned one of the safest UNC seats that had been giv­en to him on a plat­ter by the UNC, and now he asks you to vote him back. I con­sid­er this to be dis­re­spect for the par­ty and for you, and who is to say whether such be­hav­iour would not be re­peat­ed in the fu­ture."She asked where was his "loy­al­ty to the par­ty that gave birth to his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer and more so, loy­al­ty to you, mem­bers of the UNC and the Part­ner­ship". She not­ed that Warn­er al­so re­mains the sub­ject of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the es­tab­lish­ment of a new Fly­ing Squad at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. "Se­ri­ous state­ments have been made about this mat­ter by those close to it and which state­ments are al­so in the pub­lic do­main."

Ac­cord­ing to the PM, Warn­er al­so ad­mit­ted that he and his fam­i­ly are the sub­ject of an in­quiry by the gov­ern­ment of the US. "I have said that should he clear his name, he will be re-in­stat­ed," she said, adding the UNC "can­not sup­port a can­di­date un­der the cur­rent cir­cum­stances," as fur­ther le­gal chal­lenges can em­bar­rass the coun­try, gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of Ch­agua­nas West.She told the crowd that as a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Warn­er al­so "re­fused to trav­el on Gov­ern­ment busi­ness on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions".