Senator Leacock in hot water?

The saga of election ballot box which had been discovered on March 31 downstairs the building which formerly housed the government printery continues.

The Unity Labour Party (ULP) is now suggesting that Senator St Clair Leacock may find himself in “some hot water,” over the documents that came into his possession following a visit to the place where the box had been found, where he made his own “discoveries and conclusions.”{{more}}

“The question we must ask is this. Where did Leacock find these documents and what were the circumstances that led to the discovery,” the ULP asks in their weekly newspaper article.

Senator Leacock, the vice president of the New Democratic Party (NDP) displayed several documents before the media during a press conference held by his party on April 24.

He made the call then and continues to make the call for the Supervisor of Elections, Rodney Adams to resign, claiming that he is, at the very least, incompetent in the fulfilling of his duties.

Leacock, who over the last week or so, has supported protest action outside the Electoral Office calling for Adams’ resignation, has said that he is not confident that a free and fair election is possible while Adams holds the post of Supervisor of Elections.

Meanwhile, Adams has continued to ignore the resignation calls and has in fact questioned where Senator Leacock got the documents that he displayed at the NDP press conference.

Now, in a conversation with SEARCHLIGHT on Tuesday, Leacock said that he found the documents downstairs the government printery.

In another twist, Adams revealed that the documents which had been returned to him following the NDP press conference, had been placed in a drawer in his desk, but they have since gone missing.

In our Friday, May 4th edition, the last paragraph of an article titled “Da Silva leads protest at Electoral Office” mistakenly gave the impression that the documents displayed by Senator Leacock at the press conference had been in a drawer in Adams’ desk prior to the Senator’s revelation.

Searchlight has been informed that the documents were in fact, part of contents of the mysterious ballot box and were only placed in Adams’ desk drawer after they were returned to him following the NDP press conference. The documents were subsequently removed from the drawer in which they were placed, Adams claims.

Now Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has added his voice to the issue. Speaking from Cuba on the programme Double Trouble on WE FM earlier this week, Dr Gonsalves said that the call for Rodney Adams’ resignation is just political mischief by people who have nothing better to do with their time.

He further suggested that the persons leading the call may be playing a game of timing.

According to Dr Gonsalves, Rodney Adams’ contract with the government will be up in a couple of months and he has indicated that he is not willing to continue in the post. He said that by making the call for Adams’ resignation now, the protestors hope to falsely claim a victory when Adams’ contract is not renewed.