Red House petitioners

INDEPENDENT Senator Professor Kenneth Ramchand said yesterday he was surprised that instead of replying to the petitioners, Prime Minister Patrick Manning chose to speak to one of the persons who signed.

He was responding to statements from the Prime Minister that he had spoken with one of the petitioners who said he was satisfied with the Prime Minister’s explanation and recanted. However, Ramchand said yesterday that “from the newspaper reports, what I read the Prime Minister to be saying is that he offered an explanation to the petitioner and the petitioner was satisfied with the explanation and the petitioner also said that if he/she had had that explanation before the petition, he/she would not have signed”. “(According to the Prime Minister) the petitioner also said that it was his opinion that if the rest of the petitioners were to be given that explanation they would withdraw the petition,” Ramchand noted. “In our letter to the Prime Minister we suggested to him that we wanted to talk. “If the Prime Minister really has additional evidence or arguments that are likely to persuade us, we are not irrational people. And therefore he should speak to us. “I await an invitation to a meeting in response to the petition,” he said.