ST JOHN’S, Antigua – “That decision is going to be dealt with by the party at its convention.”
So said leader of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) Lester Bird when asked whether he would lead the party into the next general elections constitutionally due in 2014.
While the date for the convention is yet to be set, Bird said it has to be done before the elections “because our constitution requires us to ratify the different candidates, and that includes myself, and they have the right to determine who they think should lead the Labour Party into the next elections.”
Bird, who led the ALP into two victorious elections in 1994 and 1999, declined to state whether he has hopes of going back to the polls against United Progressive Party (UPP) Dr Errol Cort to whom he lost his St John’s Rural East seat in 2004, but defeated in 2009.
A day after the March 12, 2009 General Elections, Bird announced he planned to endorse the party’s chairman Gaston Browne as the next leader of the ALP.
Since then, the ALP has remained in election mode and up to the end of 2011, Bird had been sending out weekly press statements as opposition leader, criticising the state of affairs in the country.
