Charlestown, Nevis (July 28, 2011) – The main opposition political party on Nevis is not being forthcoming with its post-election plans. Seventeen days after the recently held Nevis elections, the leadership of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) has offered no straight answers to questions about its previously announced intention to file election petitions.

At a press conference on Thursday, the opposition party’s leadership faced the Press and failed to give any specifics about its threat to file an election petition.

For instance, on the question: when will you file the election petition? Attorney and unsuccessful CCM candidate Mark Brantley’s answers were “well within the time,” and, “soon”. But the law states that a “petition shall be presented within twenty-one days after the return made by the returning officer of the member to whose election the petition relates”. Brantley also stated, “I have formed the view that the electoral system that we have is not a bad system, but it is not perfect.”

On the question: which constituencies had fraud? All three representatives of CCM responded that every constituency had fraud but they accepted the results in the constituencies where their fellow candidates were successful but not the result in the Parish of St. John where Mark Brantley was unsuccessful at unseating Deputy Premier, the Hon. Hensley Daniel.

Not a word was mentioned about the other unsuccessful CCM candidate, Keith Scarborough, who was unsuccessful at unseating Premier Joseph Parry in the Parish of St. Thomas’. The focus was only on Mark Brantley.

On the question: what would be your reaction if the Assembly is summoned? Party leader Vance Amory answered in a self-contradictory way. “The persons who have been elected are elected to the Assembly. The Assembly and the Government are not the same. They’re different things altogether. So if there is an entitlement (a monthly salary)… then those of us who have been elected, we will no doubt do that (go and get sworn in so that we can collect our monthly salary from the Government), but seriously, we are not legitimizing the Government. Until a Court decides, we are of the view that this Government is not properly elected to govern the people.”

But weeks earlier, his deputy Brantley, said that he was not satisfied with the decisions of the court of law (after having lost every registration objection taken to the High Court) and held a demonstration and protest march in Charlestown in what he coined the peoples’ court.

On the question: what are your allegations of fraud? None of the answers were straight. They skirted allegations suggesting that somehow the Prime Minister, the Supervisor of Elections, consultant Jong, and other ‘high officials’ were involved in a conspiracy to ‘remove, add, subtract, and divide’ names from the voters list but no specific examples were given.

On the question of illegal citizenship, Mark Brantley pulled back on the perception created that illegal citizenships were provided to persons. What he said was that he believed there were citizenship applications that were fast-tracked. He said he had no evidence that there were any illegal citizenships processed.

When questioned about victimization during its tenure in office, party leader Vance Amory stated that there was no victimization. But almost immediately after Amory’s statements, his deputy, Brantley called for the dismissals of four persons: “I’m saying that we need reform of the people involved. The Supervisor must go, the Officer in charge in Nevis must go, the Registration Officer must go, and we will ensure that the Prime Minister goes shortly.”

Despite the back and forth between party supporters from both sides of the political spectrum, the fact remains that on July the 11th elections were held in Nevis. Three NRP candidates and two CCM candidates were victorious. The NRP’s cumulative popular vote count was 3,757 (an increase of 863 over 2006) while the CCM’s cumulative popular vote count was 3,722 (an increase of 672 over 2006).