CHOW: PRESIDENT MICHEL RISEN TO GREATEST HEIGHT OF DEMAGOGY

CHOW: PRESIDENT MICHEL RISEN TO GREATEST HEIGHT OF DEMAGOGY

SPPF Poster Michelas he looks during State of Nation address.

The President of the Republic, Mr James Michel, is appearing in all the party political broadcasts of the SPPF nominated candidates for the National Assembly elections – not as leader of his party but as the Head of State of Seychelles. Mr Michel is the general secretary of the SPPF. In the broadcast reserved for the political parties nominating candidates for the National Assembly elections, President Michel appeared for the SPPF as President of the Republic of Seychelles.

The DP leader, Paul Chow, has termed President Michel’s appearance on the broadcasts and the posters of SPPF nominated candidates as damaging to the future of our democracy. Mr Michel cannot in one breath claim he speaks for all the people of Seychelles while he demeans the office of the president of the Republic in overt political partisanship, Chow said.

Mr Chow said that, while it is recognised that an official of a political party is entitled to publicly and overtly promote the interest of his or her party no one should do so while he or she holds an official position in Government (the Executive). This should apply to Ministers as well, Chow said, referring to the practice of the SPPF of using Ministers paid for by the State to campaign for the Party in power during elections. The SPPF has appointed all Ministers to Central Committee (Politburo) of the party. The DP leader says that he will be proposing a law to outlaw this practice as this is tantamount to bringing the office of the President of the Republic and the Cabinet into disrepute.

Former President Albert Rene, who is the founder of the party, has refused to relinquish the post of leader to Mr Michel despite the fact that, under the Constitution, Rene is no longer qualified to stand for election to the post of President of the Republic. As a result, observers say, it has made the appearance of Michel in the political propaganda broadcast of the SPPF nominated candidates, as well as on their posters, a highly controversial move.

However, Chow reserved his most vociferous condemnation to Mr Michel’s statement last Sunday night in the SPPF political broadcast on the State broadcasting media. The DP leader has described the broadcast, in which only Mr Michel spoke, as “reaching the heights of demagogy”.

In the broadcast, President Michel claims that the opposition will create a “dictatorship” in the country if they win a majority. In an apparent reference to the constitutional case brought by the DP leader on the seemingly inconsistency of the Elections Act and the Constitution in regard to the time available to organise elections when there is a dissolution of the Assembly, Michel said that the opposition wants to “force judges to rule in its favour”. “The entire reasoning of the President of the Republic was not just illogical; he has risen to the greatest height of demagogy by any politician in a multiparty system. This type of statement is reserved for the Castro and Kim Jong Il of this world,” Chow said.

Chow said that the broadcast reveals a state of mind of the President of the Republic which is disturbing and alarming.