"I calling the DAMN elections"

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is angry that the United Workers Party (UWP) has mounted a campaign to highlight a sum of $1.2 billion that they claim is not accounted for in Dominica's government latest budget.

"I might just do some colour blocking and wear the pink shoes and call this damn elections in Dominica," Skerrit shouted at a Dominica Labour Party (DLP) rally in St. Joseph on Sunday night to launch medical Doctor Adis King as the DLP candidate.

Skerrit said he did not call elections earlier because he was giving the opposition some time to conduct a reasonable response to his party's campaign but the UWP decided to follow opposition leader, Lennox Linton, on what Skerrit described as an "idiotic complaint" about missing millions of the Citizenship By Investment (CBI) money.

Last week the UWP held a number of small "Where Di Money Gone" demonstrations at various points in Roseau and in Portsmouth to highlight that issue.

"I was planning not to say anything about it for a while. They are getting me upset with this proliferation of this 1.2 billion dollars that they claim is unaccounted for in Dominica," Skerrit said.

But Skerrit, who used more than three-quarters of his 53- minute speech attacking Linton and the UWP, claimed that Linton plagiarized the "Where Di Money Gone" campaign from Antigua.

"He took it lock, stock and barrel from Antigua," Skerrit said. "That man does not have an original thought in that big head of his."

Skerrit, the DLC political leader, also charged that Linton came up with the missing billion campaign to keep the UWP relevant because the party has no money to fund its campaign.

In response to Linton's charge, Skerrit said government officials are in the process of providing the Dominican public with figures showing receipts and expenditures from the CBI programme.

"I look ahead for Linton to make a fool of himself," said Skerrit.

Without providing evidence, Skerrit also charged that Linton and the UWP are in cahoots with foreigners to destabilize Dominica and the CBI.

"There is a campaign afoot to destroy the CBI," Skerrit said. "He would sell our patrimony to the Switzerland-based organisation."

Then Skerrit added that Linton and the UWP should be made to pay at the ballot box. The Prime Minister said he wants all 21 seats at the next general election constitutionally due in May 2020.

"I do not want any slim or even large majority in Parliament", he shouted. "I want a Keith Mitchell in Dominica. I want a Mia Mottley in Dominica. I want Karessah as an elected Member of Parliament in Dominica. I want Nicholas Shanks Esprit as an elected member of parliament at the next general elections. I do not want 18 seats; I do not want 16 seats; we want all the damn 21 seats. Clean sweep Labour wants."