Reverend William Watty comment on Anthony Astaphan contribution to Election Law amendment (Part 2)....

​Here is Part 2, of Reverend William Watty’s comments on Attorney Anthony Astaphan’s contribution to the DLP’s proposed Electoral Law amendment.
 
Reverend William Watty continued his comments on Attorney Anthony Astaphan’s contribution to proposed Electoral Law amendments by saying …. “Perhaps his most devastating attack on my contribution was my hypocrisy, which he discovered in my belated outcry, after half a century of silence, during which these “bribes” were the common practice by all the Parties contending in the Elections. Under that blistering exposure, I was expected, no doubt, to shamefacedly withdraw my criticisms, ask for forgiveness and retire into perpetual silence. May I, however, offer two explanations in defence of my ‘hypocrisy’”.
 
“Firstly, it was not in 1967, or the closing decades of the last century, but in the first two decades of this century, that the practice of bribery became so scandalous, escalated so shamelessly, and became so decisive for the outcome of Elections, that it has now reached the point of being fumigated and sanitized by legislation ‘for the avoidance of doubt’”.
 
“Secondly, and I hope he can bear with me, I was not here in 1967, or the rest of that century minus three years. I migrated in 1955 and did not return until 1997. If, therefore, Mr Astaphan can explain to me how I could have appreciated the problem of bribery in Dominica from Kingston or London or Port of Spain or Birmingham or St John’s, or how, from those distances, any input of mine could have made the slightest difference, when there was no DNO or Internet or even FAX, and the swiftest means of written communication was postage by Air Mail, I am all ears”.
 
“A good example, by the way, of the point I have been trying to make about the difficulties regarding the corrupt intention, is my difficulty in fathoming the intention that induced Mr Astaphan to link me with Mr Linton, since I am quite unaware of the connection he has attempted to forge. It ought, by now, to be common knowledge that, whatever one might think of him, Mr Linton is well able to speak for himself, and needs no mouth-piece”. …. (Part 3) in the evening news.