Keynote at Command Center Opening

Thank you!
Thank you, very much.

Behold the Big Blue Wave!
Behold the first Big Blue Wave of re-election year!
Behold the Big Blue UPP Tsunami!

Behold the power of the people!
Behold the power of the people of Antigua and Barbuda!

Let us pledge Power to the People:
Let us say it together:

Power to the People! Power! Power! Power!
Power to the People! Power! Power! Power!

UPP Supporters!
Undecided voters!
Youth and youth, and youth;
ALP Supporters and Crossovers:

We have a lot of them here today, you know.
They even wearing blue.
And we welcome them.

You know people are saying that the UPP blue is the same as the Obama blue.

Do you think Barack Obama ever had so much Blue at a Presidential campaign event as we have here on Nevis Street today?

You know what the blue party did to the red party in the elections in America in November.

Same thing here, the Blue Wave will wash away the red.

You will have to look in Country Pond for plenty red shirts as the campaign develops.

They should have remained at North Street.
They made a mistake when they came to Nevis Street.
Every time they drive up Nevis Street the Blue Wave is drowning them.

It looks like UPP win again!
Can we say, today, that UPP win again?
If you think UPP win again, let the country hear you say it.
Let the world hear you say Upp Win Again!

I thank all UPP Supporters.
I thank all undecided voters.
I thank the youth and youth.

I thank Baba Baize for his tribute.

I thank our Homecoming Queen, Daina Barnes, for reminding us that everything I do, I do it for you.

Everything we do, we should do for one another.

I particularly want to express my appreciation to the Candidates of the UPP.

They represent the true spirit of Antigua and Barbuda.

They are all achievers in their own right who have dedicated thieves to serving our country through their work in the UPP.

Everything we do, we will be doing it for you.

UPP Supporters!!
Undecided voters!
Youth and youth, and youth;
ALP Supporters and Crossovers:

Please join me in showing your support for the UPP Team for government in the second term.

I want, at this point, to acknowledge the presence among us of members of the clergy; members of the Diplomatic Corps; leaders of civil society; and political activists from sister Caribbean countries.

I welcome you all, and I take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year, filled with sunshine.

I must express my gratitude to the officers of our police force of all ranks for their assistance in rerouting traffic today and last night when we had to move in and assemble equipment for this event

I wish to acknowledge the tremendous contribution of a number of persons who worked very hard to make this event happen.

My gratitude goes to my hardworking Minister of Information, Telecommunications and Broadcasting, Dr. Edmond Mansoor, who has been, in many ways, the driving force behind this event.

My gratitude, too, to Party Chairman, Chaku Symister, for working around the clock - literally around the clock - to make this event happen.

Sylvestre Brown, Chairman of our St. George constituency branch has given yeoman service.

You might have heard a certain voice - that is sometimes louder than a trumpet - all over Antigua, at all hours of the day and night, over the last few days of this project.

That was the voice of one of my candidates who sacrificed his time with his constituents to pull together critical aspects of this event.

He is the newest and the youngest member of the UPP parliamentary team, and the incumbent and the next Member of Parliament for All Saints East and St. Luke, Chester Hughes.

Others, who prefer to work behind the scenes, have played sterling roles. I thank them all.

I must say that I am gratified at the hundreds, if not thousands, of volunteers who are assisting in the UPP campaign.

I am overwhelmed at the number of composers who are producing songs for the UPP campaign.

One of the hits of the season is “Drop the Hammer on Them!” Thanks guys. “Drop The Hammer on Them” is at the top of the Internet Hit Parade.

We all thank the Fab Five for their fabulous creative juices. The Fab Five created an instant classic with “The UPP Train”.

We sent the Big Blue Wave to them, and they created another instant classic.
Today, they are breaking down the place with the new UPP victory call, “UPP Win Again!”

Let’s hear it for Fab Five.

Do you agree that the Fab five hit the jackpot today with “UPP Win Again”?

UPP colleagues and supporters;
Undecided voters;
Youth and Youth:
Ladies and Gentlemen:

We have to understand what happened in the past if we are to make sensible decisions today in elections as in everything else.

ALP politicians have a history of breaking every law and making up their own rules in every election they have contested.

It is therefore necessary to put the impending General Election into proper context.

Before we take a close look at ALP electioneering, let me define the critical issues in this campaign, as I see them.

As I see it, the key issues of this campaign are:

Leadership;
Trust;
Management of the country’s finances;
The prices of food and other consumer items;
Personal safety;
Public peace; and
Justice.

The first and principal issue in every general election is leadership.

It is leadership in every election in every country in the region, as it is here; and as it is in US Presidential Elections.

You don’t hear the ALP talking about Leadership.

A key issue in every election campaign is Trust.

You don’t hear the ALP talking about either Leadership or Trust.

This is understandable in a party whose entire leadership frontline is all on trial for defrauding the people of Antigua and Barbuda while they held high public office.

The ALP has the record for having the highest number of frontline leaders facing conviction in court trials.

Look at the lineup that might well end up in 1735.

The ALP Chairman, the ALP Political Leader and former Prime Minister, the ALP Deputy Political Leader, the Leader of the ALP Opposition, five former Cabinet Ministers; and the ALP’s main bagman and power broker, are all in the lineup that could end up in 1735.

I don’t think any political party in history has ever faced an election with so many of its leaders facing conviction.

The voters of this country should know that if they vote for those people and if by chance, any of them get elected, they may run the risk of disqualification from sitting in parliament, or for that matter, in government.

In the face of these realities, voters should do the right thing and vote to keep Antigua and Barbuda on the right track and moving in the right direction.

Talk is that a lot of red shirts bolted after Lester did his fatal interview with Observer Radio last Tuesday.

It was not the former Prime Minister’s finest hour.

Asot and Gaston must have enjoyed seeing Lester committing political suicide as he rambled on for 55 minutes on the radio station.

Lester as much as said that in addition to walking around with a lawyer, he is now walking around with a medical doctor.

You know what that means.

The ALP has a serious leadership crisis.

They have nobody acceptable to put forward for the office of Prime Minister.

The problem they have is that Asot and Gaston are the most powerful people in the ALP after Lester.

The problem there is that one of those two is crazy; and the other one is mad.
Remember that under the Constitution you cannot sit in the Senate or the House of Representatives if you crazy or if you mad.

I am not saying who crazy or who mad.

I am not calling any names.

You know how those two men like to wash their mouths on people, and how they like to talk about court house.

Very seriously, ladies and gentlemen, the ALP is already disqualified on the issue of leadership.

Another key campaign issue is trust.

They probably don’t know what trust is, but they know that you do not trust them.

That is why they were so extravagant last month.

Antigua never saw so much Turkey.

So much free turkey, free ham, free computers, and wads of free one hundred dollar bills.

The first ALP election strategy is to attempt to buy the votes.

You don’t hear them talking about trust as a campaign issue.

On the matter of rising prices, the Antiguan and Barbudan people know that this is a global problem.

They also know that no government has done more to keep down and indeed to reduce the price of food and other essential consumer items.

And few governments have protected more than seventy percent of income earners from paying personal income tax.

The UPP has served the people well.

You may hear the ALP talking about plans for this, plans for that, and plans for the other.

Try to remember if they have been talking about any plan, apart from what one particular investor would do.

I invite the nation to judge the United Progressive Party on our performance in our first term.

Never has so much been achieved by a government in so short a space of time in this country.

For starters, the United Progressive Party has delivered on more than eighty percent of our manifesto promises.

And we did not have the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in our 2004 Manifesto, Agenda for Change.

Compare the UPP’s record in our first term against the ALP record under Lester Bird.

As the saying goes, Lester Bird, Asot Michel, Molwyn Joseph and Gaston Browne were taking this country to hell in a hand basket.

The ALP was a Three Percent Government.

In fact, the Lester Bird/Asot Michael regime ran the world’s first known Three Percent Government.

Check the record.

Look at the 1999 ALP manifesto.

Compare what Labour promised against what the Asot Michael/Lester Bird administration delivered between 1999 and 2004.

Count the specific commitments in that red manifesto.

Some of you might remember it.

It was a red book that was not worth the paper it was printed on.

One of the promises they made was to build a new terminal at VC Bird International Airport.

They also promised to complete the parallel runway.

They said they had the money for the new airport terminal and the new parallel runway from the Kuwait Fund.

They did not build a new airport.

They did not build a parallel runway.

Where did the Kuwaiti millions go?

They said in the 1999 red manifesto that they would support small business.
Lo and behold, two months before the last general election, Lester Bird was telling the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and I quote:

“If local businesses are to compete successfully against others both in our local market and abroad there is an urgent need for mergers and amalgamations to create bigger entities with the capacity necessary for successful competition”.

For all the Antiguans and Barbudans with small business ventures, for all those owners of micro businesses, who have created jobs and helped to grow the economy, I think Lester Bird’s declaration to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry five years ago is worth repeating.

Listen to the former Prime Minister, whom I again quote:

“If local businesses are to compete successfully against others both in our local market and abroad there is an urgent need for mergers and amalgamations to create bigger entities with the capacity necessary for successful competition”.
End of the quotation.

The formula the former Prime Minister had for mergers and amalgamations to create bigger entities would have wiped out small businesses in this country.

It was the same formula of mega mergers and acquisitions that has led to the global financial collapse that is now crippling the economies of the most powerful nations of the world.

That is what Lester Bird and the ALP would have done to this country if the people had not voted them out.

Anyhow, I don’t suppose you can blame Lester Bird, he wasn’t born in Antigua.

He was made in America.

In contrast to the ALP plan to wipe out small business, the United Progressive Party has mandated a special place in the sun for micro and small business.

The evidence of how UPP small business policies are working is all around us in this city, and all around the country.

They are working for suppliers to the School Meals programme.

And they are working for suppliers in the School Uniforms programme.

All of this means more power to the people.

Under the ALP, it is more power to the powerful; and to hell with the small man.
Antigua and Barbuda has come too far to turn back now.

At the same Chamber of Commerce and Industry luncheon at which he revealed his plans for mergers and acquisitions that would have had the big business sharks gobbling up the small business sardines, Lester Bird had some choice words for those of us who were calling for new standards of transparency, integrity and morality.

He called us neophytes, and he called us ignorant when we said that his government could not stand up to the transparency, integrity and morality tests.

Well, this neophyte made sure that in the first year of UPP Government, we had legislation for Integrity in Public life, Prevention of Corruption, and Freedom of Information on the books.

In its 1999 manifesto, the Three Percent ALP government said it would complete the hospital at Mount St. John’s before the 2004 elections.

That promise was another fiction.

Lester Bird has been boasting that he and VC Bird ruled Antigua and Barbuda for close to a hundred years.

People are still trying to figure that one out.

He never should have bragged about that.

It brings back memories of his infamously spoken vanity that without the birds, there would be no Antigua.

What does not take any figuring out is the fact that Lester Bird is not going to rule this country again; not even for a hundred days.

His one hundred years were more than enough.

Now, that the sunshine Government is about to move patients from Holberton to Mount St. John, Lester Bird is threatening that “Red Shirts” will march into the Mount St. John’s Hospital’

And word is out that they are planning a public event at Mount St. John this Saturday.

This brings us to the question of personal safety and public peace and issue as a campaign issue.

It is obvious that disruption of the operation of Mount St. John Medical Centre is high on the ALP’s agenda to subvert, disrupt and destabilize the country in the run up to another election.

Old dogs simply cannot learn new tricks.

I want to send a warning to those reprobates that they should think twice about attempting to terrorise the country in this election season; as was done the last time the ALP was in opposition.

As Prime Minister, and as Minister of National Security, I am responsible for public safety and public peace and good order.

I will ensure that no extreme elements put people and property at risk in this election campaign.

The culture of lawlessness that certain ALP politicians have used to achieve their political objectives has been most pernicious in the area of immigration.

They kept our brothers and sisters from other Caribbean islands who came here to Antigua and Barbuda to seek a living in virtual bondage.

Women in particular were defenseless victims.

People dependent on work permits were shanghaied into impersonating voters who had been long deceased.

All of this is well documented in the reports of international elections observers.

There are reports that the opposition has registered large numbers large numbers of non-nationals in constituencies in which they are not eligible to vote.

This could have serious consequences for persons involved in these arrangements.

It is unconscionable of the ALP leadership to place our Caribbean sisters and brothers at such risk.

I urge our brothers and sisters from other islands not to allow themselves to be used by unscrupulous politicians who care about nothing but personal political power.

I was always concerned about the ALP’s exploitation of non-nationals seeking landed status in Antigua and Barbuda.

That was why I pledged to grant Millennium Citizenship to deserving applicants in 2004.

I plan to take the naturalization process to the next level.

An urgent priority for the second term is the establishment of the Naturalisation Facilitation Unit.

The Naturalisation Facilitation Unit will make life much easier for new residents and guests workers.

The Facilitation Unit will ensure that guest workers and new residents are not exploited.

This is all part of the overhaul of the Immigration process.

We have to manage the manner in which large numbers of people come into the country to take up residence.

The new immigration system is a work in progress.

We do not want any repeat of the tragic Lee Malvo and John Mohammed fiasco in which our immigration system was penetrated and figured prominently in international reporting on the serial sniper shootings in the United States.

I will keep the nation posted on this programme.

On the issue of justice, certain politicians appear to be of the view that having lost power, they should not have to answer for any wrongs of which they might be guilty.

Justice does not work that way.

The punishment must fit the crime.

You do the crime, you must do the time.

There is only one statement in that ALP manifesto you can trust.

It was twelve words long and took up the whole of page three of the red manifesto.

It was a quotation from the President of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
The statement was about change.
I quote:

“When it is not necessary to change, it is not necessary to change.”

Let me repeat that:

“When it is not necessary to change, it is not necessary to change.”

It was necessary to close the book on the Asot Michael/Lester Bird cabal in 2004.
Antigua and Barbuda has come too far to turn back now.

There is no room in the future of Antigua and Barbuda for that bunch of reprobates.

There is no room in the future of Antigua and Barbuda for those reprobates.

Lester Bird has been boasting that he and VC Bird ruled Antigua and Barbuda for close to a hundred years.

People are still trying to figure that one out.

What does not take any figuring out is the fact that Lester Bird is not going to rule this country again, not even for a hundred days.

His hundred years were more than enough.

The country is still trying to recover.

Lester Bird himself has said that five years ago Antiguans and Barbudans had developed what he called “Bird Fatigue”.

Surely he must know that his particular strain of Bird Fatigue was fatal Bird Fatigue.

Lester Bird and his flock are running around like a swarm of crazy red ants.
In all sorts of propaganda gimmicks, they have been calling on the Prime Minister to call the election date.

I caution them that they should be careful that they might get what they are calling for.

Antigua and Barbuda has gone too far to turn back now.

After several years of declining growth rate, our country has enjoyed four successive years of growth; with new jobs.

The forecast is continued growth in 2009, which somebody has called the ‘Year 2000 & Shine; as in Sunshine’.

Antigua and Barbuda now has the respect of the nations of the world.

We have the trust and the support of powerful nations and of our sister Caribbean nations.

We have what it takes to overcome the challenges ahead.

The reality for every generation living in this country, and for generations yet unborn, is that the Birds, the Asot Michaels, and members of their flock are no longer relevant.

They have been as hopeless in opposition as they were in government.

Do we have to beg them to set the people of this country free?

On Judgment Day, March 23rd 2004, after 28 years, the Antiguan and Barbudan people threw off the yolk of the ALP.

You could almost hear the nation exhale.

And you could certainly hear the voices of the people all over our country saying:

Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.

I say to you now, let that freedom ring.

And let that freedom endure.

You guarantee that freedom will endure by voting solidly UPP.

When the elections take place on the date that I set, it will be Justice Day for the Antiguan and Barbudan people.

On that day, we will take another giant step forward on our charter for a new society.

I say to all of the Antiguan and Barbudan people, come with us as the soldiers of the United Progressive Party, from the venerable old ladies, to the daring young men, the homemakers, the professionals, the spirited young people, our public servants, our farmers and fishermen, our bus operators, our handicraft producers, our creative workers, our market vendors, who are all the people the UPP puts first, go forth on the road to victory again for the United Progressive Party and for Antigua and Barbuda.

Come with us.
Come with us.
Come with us.

As we go forward together, let us pray that God will continue to guide us and protect us; and bless our beloved country.

The day is not too distant when we will have cause again, to say again, and again:

To God be the glory!
To God be the glory!
To God be the glory!