Premier Victor Banks 
Dr. Ellis Webster 
Mr. Rommel Hughes
As the election campaign gathers momentum, three of the candidates participated in separate interviews on Radio Anguilla on Tuesday, May 12, with the interviewer being Mr. Keith “Stone” Greaves. They were Premier Victor Banks, Leader of the Anguilla United Front, Dr. Lorenzo Webster, Leader of the Anguilla Progressive Movement, and Mr. Rommel Hughes, the Independent Candidate for District 5. Following are some of what they said.
On the question of the coming elections, Mr. Banks stated:
“These are unprecedented times. The situation now, as opposed to past elections, is not the same. We made sure that in terms of being legal we requested from the Governor that he gives some consideration to the fact that we are in a period of uncertainty as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. As a consequence, we might not be in a position to have elections early, or within the given period, so that there could be some latitude for that. There is a latitude of two months…We dissolved the House on the 9th of May.
“As a consequence we have two months, sixty days, within which to have the elections. The only requirement for the date of the elections is that the opposition, the entire community, be alerted twenty-one days, after the call, for elections to be held. I would like to have elections sooner rather than later, but we are uncertain about how conditions would evolve for us to have elections. It is because one of the things that may be required, and which we would like to have, will be observers into Anguilla as part of the process. So we have to make allowances for observers coming in; we have to know who they are and where they are coming from. Obviously, they will have to be quarantined… as that will be a requirement and we are sure that it will.
“So, as a consequence, there are a number of factors which will determine when elections should be held. But the only requirement that I have, as the Premier, is to give the opposition, all parties, all independents, at least twenty-one days in which to prepare themselves for the elections…It could be extended beyond July 11. Once it gets beyond July 11, I don’t have any say in the timing – and then it becomes the Governor’s responsibility. Of course, he will probably have discussions with me about it as he will do with all members of the opposition as well; but, basically at that time, it is his call.”
The question about the elections was also commented on by Dr. Lorenzo Webster. Due to reception difficulties, his comments are best understood in a letter he sent to Governor Foy stating that following the dissolution of the House of Assembly, a date for the elections should have been announced. That letter is published elsewhere in this edition of The Anguillian newspaper.
Speaking about some of the things his Anguilla Progressive Movement would like to see, Dr. Webster stressed:
“We want to empower everyone. We want to make sure that everyone has ownership in this country, where they were born, where they live, or where they became Anguillians afterwards. That’s how we look at it; and we want to make sure that everyone rises. Now we have made our case that the fishing industry and agriculture have to be improved; and tourism has to be improved and diversified and that can be done.
“Renewable energy is something that we have been pushing hard, and that is something that has to happen and where we bring in the necessary expertise to get that done… Anguilla is on the rise with an Anguilla Progressive Movement Government…Otherwise, we are going to continue to wander, swirl around and thrash. I don’t see any hope for this country under a different administration than the Anguilla Progressive Movement.”
The Independent Candidate, Mr. Rommel Hughes, spoke to some extent on the need to revive and improve Anguilla’s economy. He said in part:
“Covid-19 has shown up some of the issues in our economic system and economic philosophy that endured for a number of years. It has brought into sharp focus what I have been saying throughout my campaign – that we need an economy that is fully-diversified. Covid-19 has shown that we need an internal economy as well as what we rely predominantly on – tourism…And this internal economy cannot function in Anguilla unless we have an appreciable larger population than we have.
“Firstly, we need to ensure that Anguillians living in the Diaspora can come back home…in order to participate in the life of our economy. They should be given an opportunity to do so… and they should be able to repatriate all their belongings duty-free basically. They shouldn’t have to pay duties…
“Secondly, all jobs that have been created in Anguilla, persons in the Diaspora should be allowed to apply for them…, and we need to diversify our [tourism] source market. Currently, our source market is largely North America and Western Europe – and with the economic crashes we have had with covid-19, and the world financial [crisis], North America and Western Europe were the centres of those economic maladies. We suffered even more because all our tourism services come from those areas. We need to expand our source market in Central South America, and even into Southern Africa…,so that we do not rely exclusively on North America and Western Europe.”
Mr. Hughes also suggested “an off-shore financial industry – not only in finance – but off-shore industrial activity…that encompasses everything – financial services and hi-tech services.” He stated that it might call for Anguilla to provide incentives for persons from abroad to invest in such undertakings on the island.
Mr. Hughes added: “We also need to look at cruise tourism. Cruise tourism is not very good now due to covid-19, but once we get out of this [crisis] it has to be part of our economic setup. We need to provide the concomitant onshore facilities for cruise tourism and tourism in general.”
Hughes, a Civil Engineer, once served as Water Engineer in the Department of Infrastructure in the Anguilla Public Service. He was later appointed CEO of the Anguilla Water Corporation, one of the statutory bodies on the island.
