The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has la­belled the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent state­ments on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form as in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive.

In a me­dia re­lease the Coun­cil said with cam­paign­ing now in full swing, sev­er­al con­cerns of pos­si­ble vi­o­la­tions of the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct have been brought to the at­ten­tion of the Coun­cil.

It said in the first in­stance, a for­mal com­plaint was lodged by the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance with re­gard to com­ments made on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The Coun­cil said the al­le­ga­tion was that an of­fen­sive ut­ter­ance was made us­ing “in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage with the po­ten­tial to cause ir­repara­ble con­se­quences.”

NTA Po­lit­i­cal Leader Gary Grif­fith com­plained about the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ments in St James where he claimed the UNC’s stand-your-ground law would cause one race to at­tack an­oth­er.

“The Coun­cil, hav­ing re­viewed the speech made by the Prime Min­is­ter, is of the view that the lan­guage used was clear­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive,” it said.

The Coun­cil added that to be sure, the state­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter runs counter to claus­es in two sec­tions of the Code, the ‘Com­mit­ment’ sec­tion as well as the sec­tion on ‘Pro­hib­it­ed Con­duct.’

“As Prime Min­is­ter, one would have ex­pect­ed that Dr Row­ley would be pro­mot­ing uni­ty in our di­ver­si­ty, and while it may not have been his in­ten­tion, the ut­ter­ances can eas­i­ly be in­ter­pret­ed as un­der­scor­ing our di­ver­si­ty and more crit­i­cal­ly could have led some sup­port­ers to em­brace

and fos­ter ha­tred and di­vi­sive­ness for mem­bers of oth­er eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties in our so­ci­ety,” it said.

The Coun­cil said in its quest to guard against such pos­si­bil­i­ties, Dr Row­ley as well as all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers must set an ex­am­ple for the cit­i­zens to fol­low and must be al­ways mind­ful to avoid in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments.