KINGSTON, Jamaica – The main opposition People’s National Party (PNP) says Prime Minister Bruce Golding had little choice but to resign and step down due to a “complete loss of credibility” and dismissed his address to the nation on Sunday night as an attempt to revive the fortunes of the ruling Jamaica Labour (JLP) ahead of the next general election.
“The truth is that the Prime Minister had to resign because of a complete loss of credibility and in those circumstances you would have expected him to be more penitent and remorseful,” said PNP general secretary Peter Bunting.
“He seemed instead to be attempting to use the occasion of resignation to give a fresh start to the over four–year-old JLP administration” Bunting added.
In his national broadcast, Golding, who had earlier announced that he was stepping down as both party leader and Prime Minister in November, said the past four years had been difficult for him.
He admitted that he had lost the confidence of Jamaicans to run the country and breached the Jamaican constitution in the scandal surrounding his handling of the extradition of the convicted drug lord and gang leader Christopher “Dudus” Coke.
“It was never about Coke’s guilt or innocence. It was about a breach of our constitution and had it been a person other than Coke it perhaps would never have become the cause celebre that it had turned out to be,” Golding told Jamaicans in an eight-and-a-half minute national broadcast.
A public inquiry revealed that information gleaned from wiretapping Coke’s interceptions were used in Coke’s extradition. In his speech, Golding appeared to pivot his resignation on the legality of the action.
