(ST.LUCIA TIMES)Opposition leader Allen Chastanet who walked out of the House of Assembly on Tuesday after a testy exchange with Speaker, Claudius Francis, said afterward that he does not respect the Speaker.
“I have no respect for the Speaker of the house,” the United Workers Party (UWP) leader declared while accusing Francis of bias and malice.
Chastanet spoke Tuesday on the Power 97.9 FM programme Newsspin, shortly after the fracas during a house debate.
“That’s something that’s been building up for a while. We saw the comments by the Speaker a couple of months ago about the bazooka. In essence, he was going to drop the gloves, and he was encouraging all labourites to take and drop the gloves off and he was going to use a bazooka to deal with members of United Workers Party,” the opposition leader told Host Timothy Poleon.
He said continued heckling in the House of Assembly followed.
The former Prime Minister acknowledged that heckling could be normal.
“That’s fine. If you are going to run your House in the manner in which you are going to allow that kind of heckling to take place, then you have to expect the Speaker is going to respond at some point, if necessary,” the former Prime Minister stated.
And he said he had tried his best over the last year and a half and accepted it as part of the norm.
But he explained that the situation had become so disrespectful and disingenuous that one must respond to some remarks.
According to the Micoud South MP, when he is on his feet, almost every word he utters becomes the subject of heckling.
Noting that he had often turned the other cheek, Chastanet explained that he was tired of the situation.
He also recalled that the House Speaker had attempted to take him before the Privileges Committee in an ‘unacceptable manner’.
” I had to take him to court, and he has lost that case. What the Speaker is doing sitting in that seat today is beyond me,” the Micoud South MP told Newsspin.
