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Government Senator and Communications Director of the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) Lisa Jawahir, has expressed disbelief after the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) distanced itself from ‘unsavoury’ material on social media featuring Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre.
“It’s a bit hard to believe,” Jawahir told reporters last week.
She said it was not the first time that UWP operatives, including UnitedPac have made unsavoury remarks about Pierre or sought to make fun of him.
“Whether it was about his speech impediment, his skin colour, where he is from, the community of Marchand that he represents. And so I saw this video – very disgusting of the Prime Minister, you know, having a snack – cheeses, one of his favorite snacks,” the SLP Communications Director said.
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“Not too long after that, I saw this thing about some gorillas, and then I saw the motions of his mouth and, you know, whoever did the video making that kind of comparison as if to suggest that the Prime Minister is, you know, a monkey,” Jawahir told reporters.
“But you know, we have heard from the United Workers Party before. We have understood their modus operandi of how they feel about Saint Lucians,” she stated.
Jawahir said when she heard opposition leader Allen Chastanet during a sitting of parliament distance himself, she could not believe him.
“You just never know. One moment they say something, another moment they say another thing. They have posted on their Facebook page about myself taking taxpayers funds to travel when they know full well that the trip was fully funded by the Taiwanese government,” the SLP Communications Director noted.
“They will still find ways to speak untruth, and their known operatives actually posted this on Facebook. So for them to now come and say that they didn’t do anything, I don’t believe them,” Jawahir declared.
However, she encouraged Saint Lucians to stay away from such activities.
“Whatever we put out there is really information that we cannot remove,” Jawahir explained.
Regarding whether the SLP would go on the offensive, she said she had never in her affiliation with the party heard any of its members make any racist or disgusting remarks, such as heard recently.
“So to go on the attack, no. The SLP has no response to that but just to encourage people to be mindful of the information that we put out there. It was not the SLP who called people jackasses. It was not the SLP who called Saint Lucians barking dogs. And so now to be referred to as monkeys, we know how we feel about this as it relates to racism, as it relates to slavery and we are a country moving forward,” Jawahir stated.
In addition, she said the SLP would continue addressing the needs of the people and fulfilling its manifesto promises.
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