The po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty Nikoli Ed­wards has called on Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes to apol­o­gise to the na­tion and put an end to a com­pe­ti­tion for a chance to tour Pres­i­dent’s House.

The par­ty has even ac­cused Pres­i­dent Weekes of com­mit­ting trea­son and “do­ing all with­in her pow­er to widen the gap be­tween the Pres­i­den­cy and the cit­i­zens.”

The com­ment came af­ter Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent an­nounced on its so­cial me­dia page that cit­i­zens could win a tour of Pres­i­dent’s House by en­ter­ing a raf­fle.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty said the lot­tery sys­tem for cit­i­zens to vis­it Pres­i­dent’s House was in­sult­ing to the peo­ple who the Pres­i­dent claims to be an emis­sary of.

The par­ty added, “If the Pres­i­dent was in fact in touch with the peo­ple of our great na­tion then she would have been aware that her New Year’s day mes­sage was not well-re­ceived, es­pe­cial­ly her an­nounce­ment of the lot­tery sys­tem to vis­it the ed­i­fice that re­quired $89Mil­lion of the peo­ple’s mon­ey to re­pair.

The Pro­gres­sive Par­ty said what added fur­ther in­sult to in­jury was that the Pres­i­dent had al­lowed or di­rect­ed the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent to in­volve pri­vate com­pa­nies in what is called “this great pub­lic be­tray­al.”

It said, “Even in mov­ing for­ward with this de­ci­sion, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent should have used pub­lic of­fices as drop-off points for en­try. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it must be not­ed that this com­pe­ti­tion is a form of gam­bling in­volv­ing a pub­lic space.

“The Pres­i­dent and the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent can­not be seen as a source of na­tion­al pride for all cit­i­zens when large seg­ments of the so­ci­ety, whose re­li­gious be­liefs or his­to­ry of ad­dic­tion de­ny them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate. This is dis­re­spect­ful to such per­sons.”

Ed­wards and the par­ty he leads has called on the Pres­i­dent “to put an end to this com­pe­ti­tion and im­me­di­ate­ly apol­o­gise to the na­tion for the in­sen­si­tiv­i­ty dis­played by her and the staff of the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.”

The Pro­gres­sive par­ty added Pres­i­dent’s House should be ac­ces­si­ble to all cit­i­zens and vis­i­tors who pass nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty checks and who wish to vis­it with­in pre­scribed hours on pre­scribed days.

It said that the Pres­i­dent must ac­knowl­edge that she had erred in her judg­ment and seek to do bet­ter as one en­trust­ed to hold the na­tion’s high­est of­fice.