By TDN Wire Staff

Port-of-Spain, Trinidad (TDN) Baroness Patricia Scotland has strenuously denied that she was a “British sponsored candidate” for the post of Commonwealth Secretary General. She was responding to recent press reports, which quoted Antigua prime minister Gaston Browne as saying that Baroness Scotland “was not a Caribbean candidate” but she was a “British-sponsored candidate who happened to have been born in Dominica with Antiguan parentage.”

The Baroness speaking in Trinidad & Tobago recently where she was on the invitation of the Pointe-a- Pierre Wildfowl Trust for their 50th Anniversary celebrations insisted that she was sponsored by her “home country of Dominica.”

“So I have heard with interest all of the comments made about whether I was, or was not Caribbean. That’s someone else’s problem It’s not mine. I have always known, from my early years, who I was,” she said. Adding “I was nominated by my prime minister.”

She pointed to her understanding of Creole and the fact that her parents never allowed her to forget her roots or where she came from. The Baroness also stressed the fact that two of her relatives were former prime ministers of Dominica, Edward Oliver Leblanc and Roosevelt Douglas. “So frankly if I’m not Dominican, as I don’t know who is,” she said.

She noted that her father’s family was a very old Antiguan family, and he played cricket for the Windward/Leeward islands with Malcolm Richards, father of former West Indies cricketer Sir Vivian Richards.

Some CARICOM leaders tried unsuccessfully to get Dominica to drop the nomination of the Baroness arguing in favor of a unified Caribbean candidate in the person of Sir Ronald Sanders. But just days before the elections an article in the British Independent newspaper raised serious concerns about his past behavior linking him to a 1.4 million pounds fraud in Antigua.

Gaston Browne denied the allegations saying that Sanders was never questioned or charged over the affair, but the article appears to have torpedoed his chances of winning the vote.

Baroness Scotland said that she felt truly blessed to have been elected and was looking forward to serve the 53 countries of the Commonwealth.

IMAGE: Baroness Patricia Scotland.

For more on this story go to: http://www.thedominican.net/2015/12/scotland-denies-british-candidate.htm

Related story:

Antigua and Grenada remain unhappy over outcome of Commonwealth election

By Ken Richards From Caribbean News Now

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — Dominica’s nominee, British peer Baroness Patricia Scotland, may have won the post of Commonwealth secretary general, but Antigua and Barbuda, whose candidate Sir Ronald Sanders lost, and Grenada remain unhappy with the situation.

Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne and Grenada’s Keith Mitchell were among Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) heads who tried ahead of the election for Commonwealth secretary general in Malta to get Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit to withdraw Scotland from the race to give Antiguan candidate Sanders a better chance of winning the election.

Mitchell is also not happy with the results in Malta, as he indicated to the parliament in St George’s. According to Mitchell, the Caribbean got a black eye over the issue.

Scotland – the first woman to become Commonwealth secretary general, was born in Dominica – her mother is Dominican and her father Antiguan. She has been described by some of her critics as a British rather than a Dominican candidate. Post election, that view is still held by Browne, for whom the British peer’s victory is a bitter pill to swallow.

Analyst Arvel Grant agreed that Scotland had Britain’s help in winning the election for Commonwealth secretary general. She will take up the post in April of next year.

IMAGE: British Baroness Patricia Scotland

For more on this story go to: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-Antigua-and-Grenada-remain-unhappy-over-outcome-of-Commonwealth-election-28628.html