JULES RULES

The best thing to happen to the NDP since they lost the elections happened last week when they announced that Jules Ferdinand would be their party’s standard-bearer in West St. George for the next General Elections. In the 2010 elections, the seat was contested by Vynette Fredrick, my favourite source of unending political comedy. Vynette was replaced, briefly, by Anesia Baptiste, the caretaker who dealt her party such a vicious body blow of dissent and discord that it has yet to fully recover.

Upgrading from Vynette/Anesia to Jules is a quantum leap in quality. I’m not a fan of his newspaper column, but he has a great resumé and a solid reputation. He is better known, better qualified, has a better temperament, is more mature, more people friendly and better respected than any other mainland NDP candidate not named Arnhim Eustace.

That should scare two sets of people.

First, it should scare the shit out of the ULP and Cess McKie. Cess is a people person, much beloved in his constituency. Of the new elected representatives in Parliament, he may be doing the best job (you could persuade me that Saboto is doing the best of the newbies). But while Cess is a great guy, he hasn’t yet have to prove that he’s a great campaigner. The NDP gifted him the seat in 2010 by running an unelectable Vynette, and he coasted to victory. Facing the potential of an equally unelectable Anesia, Cess was still coasting.

Jules is a different kettle of fish. While the St. Georges constituencies still lean ULP, like the entire Windward side of St. Vincent, Jules is a serious and credible challenger. Cess has to sit up and take notice. Expect a reinvigorated Cess for the next three years in West St. George, or he is toast.

The ULP, too, has to worry. They have no margin for error, no seats to lose if they want to remain in government next time around. As much as its detractors branded it as Encyclopaedia Ralph and 14 copybooks, the ULP team was fresher, better qualified, and more impressive than the NDP’s sad sack team of election also-rans. Outside of Arnhim and Friday, the NDP ran some real dregs, or candidates with astronomically high negatives in the public view. Jules changes that dynamic somewhat. Jules is an old guy, but he’s a fresh face politically. He’s a good catch for the NDP, which must give the ULP pause. They can’t afford for him to unseat Cess. But more than that, they can’t afford him to give the NDP ticket any semblance of national credibility.

The second set of people that need to worry are the current NDP pretenders to Arnhim’s tattered throne. For the last 5+ years, the debate has been on the relative merits of Lewis, Leacock or Friday as the next leader of the NDP. If Jules wins his seat, they can kiss their aspirations goodbye. Whether or not NDP forms government in the next election, the next leader of the NDP would be Jules – as long as he can snare his seat.

That realisation must keep Linton and Leacock up at night.

ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL

Barack Obama won. If you listened to the pundits, this was a toss-up. But the (reputable) statisticians were always saying that Obama was a strong favourite to win the electoral college comfortably, albeit with a reduced majority of the popular vote (see statistician Nate Silver’s brilliant FiveThirtyEightblog, which has called the last few elections almost perfectly).

What was interesting to me was how badly the world (including SVG) wanted Obama to win, while America itself was deeply divided and highly ambivalent. The BBC did a poll, and apparently every country in the world except Pakistan was overwhelmingly pro-Obama (If I were Pakistani, suffering under increasingly indiscriminate American drone strikes that have killed innocent civilians and even friendly soldiers, my vote wouldn’t be so sure either).

If Facebook and rumshop conversations are anything to go by, SVG’s own support for Obama must’ve been somewhere close to 90%. And the positively giddy local press coverage of Obama’s win was more effusive and comprehensive than anything they put together for the ULP’s 2010 General Elections win. In fact, the average Vincy seemed more in tune with American electoral politics than our own.

Another reason to burn your cable box.

But back to the SVG’s rabid Obama support. It was hilarious to hear some pro-Obama Vincies convincingly explain away the USA’s economic woes with great nuance and precision (he inherited it from Bush! At least he’s doing better than Europe! It’s a global crisis, everywhere is suffering! His policies avoided a deeper crisis! Those ignorant Republicans are blaming him for things he did not create, but they have no credible alternative plan!). Many of those same Vincies, however, refuse to extend the same logic and flexibility to SVG’s economic difficulties. In SVG, economic hardship is to be blamed on Ralph’s idiotic policies. Our wounds are all self-inflicted. Barack, on the other hand, is a victim, expertly playing the shitty hand that fate dealt him. The schizophrenia of some Vincentians – sounding like dyed-in-the-wool democrats while discussing Barack, but adopting Romney’s playbook to attack Ralph – was jarring.

The lesson, as always, is that all politics is local. Vincentians were prepared to counsel patience and display a stunning collective grasp of international macroeconomics in the USA context because, well, the realities of the American depression weren’t directly affecting us. The whole world would’ve voted for Obama. Only problem is, the whole world wasn’t losing their job in Michigan, or agonising about their health care in Florida. The whole world wasn’t worrying about federal income tax increases, factory closures, auto bailouts or their property values in Ohio and Nevada.

For the people who did have those direct worries, the election was quite a bit closer than our voyeuristic, long-distance analysis of the election.

As Bob Marley said: Who feels it, knows it, Lord.

Another couple points on the USA election. Did you notice that Obama’s final margin of victory in the popular vote (50.6% to 47.8%) was almost identical to the ULP’s 2010 election result (51.6% to 48.1%)? I leave you to make your own insights from that lil’ tidbit.

Finally, I’ve heard a few Vincy pundits decrying American’s archaic weighted voting system (the Electoral College) as undemocratic. The pros and cons of the system are always debated each election cycle.

But here at home, where is the outrage about SVG’s undemocratic weighted voted system? As I never tire of pointing out, the voters of East St. George and South Leeward are being unconstitutionally disenfranchised because it takes more of their votes to elect a representative than any other seats in the country. In fact, Linton Lewis’ and David Browne’s losing vote totals in those constituencies would’ve comfortably won them seats in six other constituencies.

On the other hand, the Grenadines simply do not have enough residents to justify having two seats. Votes in those constituencies are irrationally (and unconstitutionally) over-weighted. Terrance Ollivere’s winning total of 1,112 votes in the Southern Grenadines would have been the second-lowest LOSING vote total on the mainland (only Kenroy Johnson – the NDP’s sacrificial lamb in Gonsalves’ constituency – got less votes on St. Vincent than Ollivere WON with in the Southern Grenadines).

Before you worry about understanding America’s electoral college, wrap your mind around this fact: 4,995 people voted to elect one representative in South Leeward (winning total: 2,593). Meanwhile, a mere 1,757 voters managed to choose their rep in the Sothern Grenadines (winning total 1,112). If everyone who voted in the Southern Grenadines voted for the same candidate, that total would've gotten them 35% of the vote in South Leeward (obviously, they would've lost). Each vote in South Leeward was worth one third of the value of a Southern Grenadines vote.

How long are we gonna let that continue?

"Arnhim Eustace, Yellow Journalist" (and five other random political thoughts)

Since I haven’t posted a blog entry in six months, I’ve decided to (over)compensate with this interminably verbose entry, which is almost as long as the entire United States constitution. This is officially my longest blog posting in a long history of long blog postings. Medical experts recommend that you read it in 500-word chunks over the next 7 days. Enjoy, if you can:

In the mid-1890s, famed American publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst invented what came to be known as “yellow journalism.” Pulitzer and Hearst, locked in a bitter circulation battle with two rival newspapers, created ever-more scandalous and sensational headlines in an effort to sell more and more copies of their publications, facts be damned. “The practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion.” Or, put another way, “the papers themselves trumpeted their concern for the ‘people.’ At the same time, yellow journalists choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with shrieking, gaudy, sensation-loving, devil-may-care kinds of journalism.”

In the ensuing hundred-plus years, the original Yellow Journalists begat the National Enquirer, Rush Limbaugh, and News of the World.

And Arnhim Eustace.

Yes, SVG’s nominal Leader of the Opposition is a yellow journalist of the highest caliber; much more so than his erstwhile comrade-in-harm, EG Lynch, who is more of a garden-variety rabble-rouser (although an undeniably talented rabble-rouser). Eustace secured his undisputed title as the nation’s preeminent yellow journalist with months of breathless, misleading and careless predictions that the IMF was on the verge of forcing SVG into an austerity package that would make Greece’s problems look like a walk in the park.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m kinda fond of yellow journalism. In the right context, it can be light, frothy treat, like a good cappuccino.  Yellow journalism, in the hands of an expert, can be respected just for its inventiveness: Just how exactly, was that massive mountain created from that tiny little molehill?

But, problem is, we didn’t elect Eustace to be the second coming of William Randolph Hearst, nor are we paying him to be. His paycheque says “Leader of the Opposition,” and that’s how we should expect him to act. Not a glorified scandalmonger who runs to the airwaves and newspapers with every half-baked rumour that is whispered to him.

Starting with “IMF TO IMPOSE BITTER ECONOMIC MEDICINE ON SVG ANY DAY NOW,” let’s take a look at some other Eustace “headlines” that spring to mind:

“YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS: BANANA SHIPMENTS TO BE TERMINATED BY WIBDECO TOMORROW!”

“BANK RECORDS SHOW PRIME MINISTER’S CHILDREN DEPOSIT MONEY IN NCB!”

“SVG TO SWITCH RECOGNITION FROM TAIWAN TO CHINA TO PURSUE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL BID!”

“LIFE SUPPORT: NDP GIVES ULP GOV’T 6 MONTHS TO LIVE!”

“2010 ELECTION DATE REVEALED! LOOK INSIDE!”

“ULP COMMITS MASSIVE ELECTION FRAUD! LEGAL CHALLENGES FORTHCOMING!”

And so on. . .

Look, I’m not so concerned whether Eustace was 100% wrong, 75% wrong or just slightly off in his breathless predictions. I’m concerned with his modus operandi. Why, oh why, must he run to the radio station before he gets all his facts straight?

Let us be clear. It is not the job of the Leader of the Opposition to “scoop” other news organisaions and be the first person on the air with the hottest news. That’s for Kenton Chance and Dougie Nose and Cyp Neehall and Clare Keizer et al. The Leader of the Opposition should then soberly comment on the headlines, analyse their meaning in the Vincentian context, and offer praise/condemnation/context/alternatives to the policies of the elected government.

If Eustace gets a hot tip from an anonymous source, he should either (a) do some checking to make sure the info is solid; or (b) pass the tip on to a Eustace-friendly journalist or publisher for dissemination. All you get from running headlong to NICE Radio with half-baked ideas is egg on your face. Eustace’s premature dissemination only makes it easier for Gonsalves to alter course, correct whatever issue there was, or make Eustace look dumb by highlighting his factual errors.

If Eustace waits, he can look statesmanlike. If he rushes, he can fall on his face. Yet, he ALWAYS rushes in, where angels fear to tread. Why?

The answer is that “real” journalists have refused to hold Eustace to account for his factless foibles. The Vincy news cycle goes like this: Eustace screams some yellow journalism headline, the press reports it as if it were a fact, it turns out not to be a fact. No one says anything. Eustace moves on to some other guestimation of fact, the process repeats itself.

I can’t believe that the Vincentian media has some sort of boundless faith in Eustace’s weekly crying of wolf, so they must just be lazy. Criminally, negligently, lazy. If someone has a 10-year record of getting the facts wrong, at some point a grain of salt must be added to the news coverage. Maybe the journalist could ask the “other side” for a comment, rather than just reporting “Eustace said X, Y, Z.” Or here’s a novel idea: the media could do some research of its own! Ever heard of fact-checking? Independently verifying a source's information before publishing?

Case in point: Eustace has been predicting for at least a month that the latest IMF Article IV consultations with SVG would lead to harsh economic prescriptions from that body. When it started to look like maybe that wasn’t the case, he said he would have to see the specifics of the “agreement” that the Gov’t and the IMF came to.

Sounds reasonable, except for one little problem: Article IV consultations do not lead to austerity measures OR “agreements.” A little Googling would tell even the casual journalist that the IMF prescribes its bitter medicine only when it is lending a country money, not when it is simply stopping by for its annual consultations. (Of course, any gov't wants the final report coming out of those consultations to be positive. A positive report means its easier to borrow money from non-IMF lenders. But the IMF can't impose conditions or structural adjustment programmes or bitter medicine during an Article IV consultation. Eustace knows this. And so should the press).

But our lazy journalists simply say “Eustace is an economist, he knows what he’s talking about.” And they report blindly. Think I’m exaggerating? Go to Google and type in this search term (including the quotation marks):

“Eustace, an economist”

Google tells me that there are about 1,390 results that have precisely that phrase: “Eustace, an economist.” Really? How about “Gonsalves, an economist” (it’s what his bachelor’s degree is in); or “Gonsalves, an expert in government” (it's what his Master’s and PhD are in). Or how about simply “Dr. Gonsalves” in the same way that Linton Lewis is always “Dr. Lewis” (and Leacock is always the “Major”). We’re always complaining that Vincentians don’t read enough. But its not like our journalists are giving us anything compelling to read, either. Just rehashed and reheated rumours from “Eustace, Yellow Journalist.”

Anyway, I digress.

Five Random Political (& Musical) Thoughts:

RANDOM THOUGHT #1. “Whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it.”

So let me get this straight: Back in the election campaign, Gonsalves called Vinnie Vee a “tomboy” and made some tasteless joke that her dad sent a daughter off to school and got a son back in return. In another meeting, on another day in another locale, Gonsalves again took up the topic of Vynnette, saying she was too inexperienced to be a good representative (he used typically colourful terms like “force ripe” or “fluxy”). Now, during the “Fluxy” meeting, people in the crowd began chanting that Vynnette was a lesbian (I hear that truth is a defence to that kind of slander, but again, I digress). While the crowd chanted "lesbian" at that meeting, Gonsalves made no comment about her sexuality or made any tomboy innuendo.

But Vynnette, in complaining to the High Court about Gonsalves’ utterances, swore to an affidavit, which incorrectly claimed that the “lesbian” crowd comments were made DURING the TOMBOY meeting and not the FLUXY meeting. Why is this important? Because Vynnette claimed (and the court agreed) that it was the juxtaposition of the call and response of “tomboy” and “lesbian” that led to the unmistakable defamatory meaning of the Comrade’s picong.

Turns out that the Frank DaSilva, the guy who gave VinnieVee the copies of the tapes of both the “Tomboy” and the “Fluxy” meetings went back and listened to the tapes, and realized that ‘ole VinnieVee was pulling a fast one on the court. Which is a problem, because under Vincy law, that kind of oath-rigging is a criminal offense, and can land you in jail for 2-5 years.

Now I don’t think ‘ole Vinnie Vee deserves any jail time. She was just – as usual – a lil bit hysterical and over the top. But, by the same token, she shouldn’t be putting people in court for campaign picong. While Gonsalves was on one platform hinting that Vinnie was one dance step away from Chaz Bono, NDP candidates were calling Ralph a rapist, a money-launderer, and even a child molester (I heard it with my own two ears). Traditionally we suspend the laws of libel and slander in an election season. Vinnie didn’t honour that understanding, and now it might bite her in the ass.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Here is my real question though: Assuming that Gonsalves had his usual high powered (and high priced) legal team of Anthony Astaphan, Grahame Bollers, Richard Williams and Rochelle Forde on the case, how come NOBODY noticed that Vinnie’s affidavit was bogus before the High Court ruled in the case? When Frank DaSilva is rescuing Ralph Gonsalves from legal drama, something’s wrong with your legal team, Comrade.

RANDOM THOUGHT #2:  “Never mind, I’ll find someone like you, I wish nothing but the best for you.”

The big news out of the 2011 NDP Convention was the rank-and-file’s overwhelming rejection of Senators Anesia Baptiste and Vynnette Fredrick for plum positions within the party hierarchy. VinnieVee got trounced by Ernesto Cooke, a political chameleon who, this time last year, was cavorting with Gonsalves and trying to be selected as a ULP elections candidate. Against this Johnny-come-lately, Vinny (the incumbent Public Relations Officer and loudest voice in the party) could only muster 37% of the vote.

Anesia, typically overzealous and with her typically overinflated sense of self, ran for party Chairman (Chairwoman? Chairperson?), and got the reality check of her life, garnering a mere 7% of the vote in a three-way race, and placing a distant third behind incumbent Linton Lewis (Sorry, DR. Linton Lewis) and (credible) challenger Daniel Cummings, who managed 49% and 44%, respectively.

The less said about VinnieVee on this one, the better. I’ve been calling her an empty vessel for a couple of years now. Jomo Thomas agreed with me in print about a year ago, and the NDP delegates are now simply concurring. She’d already been stripped of her role as caretaker/future candidate in West St. George, so its clear that the party was souring on her. Now that she’s lost the PRO gig, it’ll be interesting to see how long she’s kept around in the Senate before she’s allowed to make a graceful exit. (The irony is that I’ve always thought that she could be effective in a loudmouth/rabble-rouser/event planner type of role, just not a candidate. They should’ve replace Lynch with VinnieVee, not Cookie.)

Even though Anesia must still be waking up with nightmares from the blows she got in the race for Chairperson of the party, she’s not mortally wounded. She’s still got a bit more brains and a bit more work ethic than Vynnette, and she’s curbed her more shrill and theocratic instincts, for the time being. She’s young and will recover. Anesia's (distant) future is still in decent shape. She simply won’t be Prime Minister by 2015, as she’d hoped. We can all live with that, I think.

But the REAL story out of the convention is Arnhim’s weakness in his own party; and the REAL questions surround Anesia’s motivation to enter a race she knew she was gonna lose.

Let’s first deal with the weakness of Eustace, an economist. Here we have an unmistakable rejection of the hand-picked senators of the former Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, three-time winner of East Kingstown, and leader of the NDP. ‘Lest we forget, Eustace, an economist, appointed Anesia and Vynnette himself, and consulted no one in the party on their selection. Now, these two women, manifestations of Arnhim’s political acumen and the face of the Eustace wing of the party, got their hats handed to them by (a) a political nomad (Cooke), and (b) the leading representative of the Son Mitchell faction of the NDP (Dr. Lewis).

Arhnim’s coattails are shorter than the hair on his head. His own party does not trust his political judgment. That’s the real story from the NDP convention.

More interesting to me is the “what was Anesia thinking” question. I know that she thinks that her “dear people” love her, but I refuse to believe that she was so deluded to think that she would have been catapulted to Chairperson of the NDP. Could she be that dense? The possible answers to “what was Anesia thinking?” are:

1. She wasn’t thinking, she’s a crazy member of an anti-Semitic religious cult. Maybe God told her to run;
2. She thought it would be a good way to get her name out there, or to empirically test her support among the party faithful;
3. She really thought that the rank-and-file members of the party love and support her enough to beat two party stalwarts who have garnered thousands of votes in their own General Elections campaigns; or
4. She wanted to play the spoiler.

What, you say? The spoiler? Please explain, Vincy Patriot!

Sure, here goes: There are two factions in the NDP. The Mitchell, old-NDP faction, (they’re older, remember the glory days, are motivated by personal greed, glory, or plain old bad mind); and the Eustace, new-NDP faction, (younger, came of age under ULP government, no memory of the Mitchell era, urban, bourgeois, and focused on identifying problems, but not fixing them). The face of the Mitchell faction of the party is Linton Lewis (DR. Linton Lewis), who has publicly criticised and clashed with Eustace and who Eustace, an economist, refuses to appoint to the Senate, despite Lewis’ decade-long public pleading for the job.

Now the Mitchell and Eustace factions of the party are just about evenly balanced. Want proof of that? Look at Lewis’ vote totals for Chairman. He got 49% of the vote. That’s pretty much right down the middle.

Eustace, an economist, wants to put his stamp on the NDP, a decade after Mitchell’s exit, but he can’t get it done if the Chairman of the party is a Mitchell acolyte. So what does he do? He prompts one of his boys – Daniel Cummings – to challenge Lewis for Chairman. With a 50-50 split between the Mitchell and Eustace factions, the balance of power would be decided by – you guessed it – a third candidate spoiler.

Look at the numbers. Anesia got a paltry 19 votes. But Cummings only lost to Linton by 13 votes! If Anesia was out of the race, where do those votes go? I say they go to Cummings, because the Mitchell faction has been virulently anti-Anesia from the day she was appointed Senator. I don’t think she got any votes from that side of the fence.

What I’m saying is this: if Anesia stays out of the race, Daniel Cummings defeats Linton Lewis 138 to 132, Lewis’ political career is over, and Eustace, an economist, has a stronger hold on power internally. Instead, Arnhim ends the day weaker, since delegates at the convention rejected everyone in the party associated with him (Vynnette, Anesia, Cummings).

So let’s assume Anesia wanted to play the spoiler. Who was she trying to spoil? Linton or Cummings? The questions you must ask yourselves, dear readers, are these:

1. Did Anesia want Cummings to lose, and if so, why? (Because she likes Dr. Linton? Because she sees Cummings as a threat to her future ascendance? Because she didn’t want Arnhim cementing his hold on the NDP party structures?)
2. Did Anesia actually want to ensure that Dr. Linton lost, but misjudged her effect on the race? (Did she think she would siphon votes from the Mitchell faction?)
3. Did Anesia’s Trini mentor, that mighty prophet of Thusia, take a break from molesting little girls in TnT and order her to enter the race?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmm. . .

RANDOM THOUGHT #3. “Come Mr. Tally Man, Tally Mi Bananas.”

The Ministry of Agriculture is a mess. It’s a joke. It’s a messy joke. Every year, we grow less stuff than we grew the year before, and the Ministry of Agriculture is looking more like the ministry of farmer’s welfare, because it seems to be doling out more and more money in emergency assistance to farmers than anything else.

Now, I get that Hurricane Tomas destroyed 99% of all banana cultivation in SVG (who was the lucky farmer with the 1% that survived? Was he growing bananas in a cave?), but the post-Tomas return of bananas could hardly have been less auspicious. Black Sigatoka, Leaf Spot Disease, failing to spray crops, buy spray for crops, etc. Only 66% of our bananas are good enough for export, and the standard is 85%. Things are bad.

You think cocoa cultivation is gonna change things? First off, anybody reading this blog should know that I am no fan of this cocoa initiative, and less so of Amajaro, the shadowy, exploitative conglomerate behind the move. But even if cocoa was a fantastic idea, is this the ministry you want implementing it? The gang that can’t shoot straight messed up the simple replanting of bananas, a crop we’ve grown for about a hundred years. You think they’ll be able to handle a BRAND NEW cash crop?

Now, the face of all this bumbling is the Minister of Agriculture, Montgomery “Carib” Daniel. ‘Gomery is a nice guy, affable, pleasant, and a farmer himself. But under him, the Ministry of Agriculture is sputtering. Its full of technocrats with fancy qualifications from fancy universities, but none of those technocrats have any dirt under their fingernails, let alone experience with SVG’s farming community. ‘Gomery has deferred to them at every turn, while they generate cool PowerPoint presentations and impressive 5-, 10-, and 20-year plans for agriculture. Never mind that none of the farmers in out agricultural belt are buying into these plans.

The inmates are running the asylum. When ‘Gomrey blamed faceless bureaucrats in his Ministry for screwing up the banana pest control, he was probably telling the truth. He’s given up so much of his authority to his underlings, he doesn’t understand why he should be getting blamed for their fuck-ups. But the buck gotta stop somewhere, and that somewhere is either his desk or Ralph’s.

For the sake of agriculture in SVG, ‘Gomrey should be reassigned. But for the sake of politics, he can’t be. First off, Gonsalves’ razor-thin margin of victory means that he doesn’t have many options in the cabinet to replace ‘Gomery. Saboto Caesar would be a solid choice, but Gonsalves likes his tourism ministers to be young, bald and handsome, and with Glen Beache’s retirement from politics, Saboto’s all he’s got (In a pinch, Gonsalves will also hand the Ministry of Tourism to a fat female lawyer with false hair, but Rene retired and Fife couldn’t win an election if she were running unopposed). Plus, moving from Tourism to Agriculture is a demotion in our economic/political context, and you can’t demote Saboto, the party’s heir-apparent.

Girlyn Miguel is from the party’s agricultural belt, and is a steady hand, but I for one can’t imagine ‘Gomery taking over Girlyn’s role as Education Minister. Swapping Girlyn for Gomery would trigger a major cabinet reshuffle that Gonsalves doesn’t seem to have an appetite for this early in his third term (Gonsalves himself would be a great agriculture minister – son of a farmer, constituency in the agricultural belt, likes to eat – but he can’t take on another ministry. And if he did, he’d be so busy that he’d leave the day-to-day matters to the same technocrats who’re screwing it up now).

Plus there’s one more issue. Up there in North Windward, agriculture’s all they’ve got. If Gomery loses the Minister of Agriculture gig, he loses a great deal of power and influence in that constituency, which is crucial to the ULP’s plans for staying in power past 2015.

I don’t see ‘Gomery going anywhere.

RANDOM THOUGHT #4. “Everything Old is New Again”

As I’m writing this, I’m reading that the St. Lucia Labour Party has roared back into power after only one term in opposition. I dunno the first thing about St. Lucian politics, so I won’t express an opinion on the ‘Lucian ramifications. But locally, I know that Ralph must think Christmas has come early, while Eustace, an economist, is probably grinding a few more layers of enamel off his teeth.

Kenny Anthony’s SLP couldn’t be more like Gonsalves’ ULP. They are two peas in the same ideological pod. Meanwhile, Stephenson King’s UWP was basically the St. Lucian branch of the NDP. I mean, the SWP was even founded by Mitchell’s cousin, John Compton! Eustace, an economist, crowed loudly about the SWP’s surprise victory over Kenny Anthony a few years ago, and called it a harbinger of the NDP’s impeding victory in SVG. Funny how things work out.

Meanwhile, Gonsalves must be giddy. A couple years ago, Gonsalves would’ve looked around the region and felt pretty lonely. In addition to Kenny Anthony, his buddy Patrick Manning was gone in TnT. Same for Owen Arthur in BIM. His sister party in Jamaica, the PNP, was out of office, and his friends in Antigua and St. Kitts were looking shaky.

Today, in the OECS, Gonsalves has a solid base of friends and like-minded leaders. To one degree or another, the governments of Dominica, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Kitts are on the same left-of-center page as SVG (I dunno if Tillman Thomas in Grenada is clever enough to have an ideology – or a thought – of his own). Kamla is in real trouble in TnT, Bruce Golding quit as Prime Minister of Jamaica, and the untimely death of David Thompson has revived Owen Arthur’s moribund political career.

As the regional pendulum once again swings to the left, maybe we can make some progress with regional integration. If Jamaica’s JLP and Trinidad’s COP stay in power, CARICOM aint goin anywhere good. But with the Gonsalves-Skerrit-Anthony corridor now forming the backbone of the OECS, we may make some progress on that front.

RANDOM THOUGHT #5. “Have a Holly, Jolly Christmas”

I’m a Christmas sap. I play the carols all day. I’ve never missed a single morning of Nine Mornings in my life. I buy gifts months in advance and seconds before stores close on Christmas Eve. I love wrapping and unwrapping gifts. I (gasp!) make my annual, non-funeral, non-wedding trip to church. I actually believe in the whole peace on earth, goodwill to all men bit. And Santa. I believe in him too.

If you’re atheist or religious. If you’re apathetic or involved. If you believe in Buddah, Allah, Shiva, Shango, Selassie I, a Catholic God, a Baptist God, an Anglican God, a Methodist God, a 7^th Day God. Whether your God is a he or a she. Whether your God is loving, forgiving, or fire, brimstone and eternal judgement/damnation. Whether your God wants you to be rich or sees virtue in poverty. Whether you worship your God with idols, obeah, voodoo, in a church, in your house, by a river. Whether you pray daily, never, or only when you're in trouble. Whether there is such a thing as "Christmas" in your religion/lifestyle/culture/custom/tradition/history/consciousness.

Whether your God wears red stars or yellow keys.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD MONTH!

NDP math: 0 plans + 1 fresh face = >8 seats?

Political campaigns, I thought, ran on a pretty predictable cycle in the Caribbean:
 

1. A new team of fresh faces and big ideas challenges the stodgy, tired incumbents, who have been in power for 10-15 years  
2. The new team makes a number of big promises about its plans – what it will do, what it will change, how it will lead us to the promised land  
3. The new team is swept to power on the basis of its plans and promises, and the dissatisfaction/familiarity/boredom with the incumbents  
4. The new team serves 10-15 years, each year worse than the one that came before it  
5. Over those 10-15 years, the out-of-power party refreshes itself, and a new set of young turks come to the fore, full of fresh energy and ideas   
6. Return to step 1

That’s pretty much been the norm in Caribbean politics. And that aint necessarily a bad thing, either. But this year, this election in SVG, is totally different. I just can’t figure it out.

Why do I say that? Well, if you agree with my “cycle” above, you’ll see that the opposition needs 2 things on their side: plans, and freshness. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they DON’T have.

We have two weeks to go ‘till Election Day. 13 days. And the NDP has yet to lay out any plan or coherent vision for the country.

All I’ve heard (and I’ve been listening) is:

     “you tear down our poster!”
     “you not distributing hurricane relief fairly!”
     “you full of [liars/thieves/communists/rapists/victimizers/etc.]!”
     “you registered three voters from central Kingstown in east Kingstown instead!”
     “you did everything wrong! EVERYTHING!”
     “We hate Ralph Gonsalves!”
     “No!”
     “Enough! No More!”
     “Hugo Chavez! Cuba! Iran!”
     “Pastor gonna Christen his pickney first!”

[Oh! You can add to this list some vague words about a “Meritocracy” from Linton Lewis and an abstract wish for “Vincentians not to go to bed hungry” from Leacock.]

Ohh-kayy, then. So, allow me to paraphrase the core of the NDP election message, to date: “elect us, and we promise a country where campaign posters will remain up and all voters will be registered where they reside. We will discontinue everything that the previous administration has done or is doing. We will take care of our supporters before anyone else, but among our own supporters there will be a meritocracy and fairly distributed relief supplies. We will ensure that no Vincentian goes to bed hungry. Just like Chatoyer is our 1st National Hero, we will make Ralph Gonsalves our 1st National Villain. Vote NDP.”

There’s gotta be more, right?

. . . right?

Thirteen days to go, and no manifesto from the NDP. Granted, no manifesto from the ULP either, but they’re running on their record, not their promises. And Ralph has also printed a bunch of mini-manifestos as newspaper inserts on ULP’s plans for health, education, poverty reduction, etc. (What? You didn’t read any of them? Now whose fault is that?)

So. NDP is not exactly setting the world on fire in the “plans” department. What about “freshness”?

Well, fresh aint exactly what you’d call these guys either. Its fair to say most of them have passed their sell-by dates. Almost all of the candidates date back to the NDP’s 2001 defeat, and some, like Burton Williams, go back even further. Basically, as new NDP faces, you have Vynette, and the Guy-They-Picked-To-Go-Against-Ralph-After-Dinky-And-Margaret-Fell-Through.

So, basically, sans Vinny-Vee and the sacrificial lamb, NDP is running a bunch of old men, most of whom were rejected the last two times they went to the polls. Arnhim is older than Ralph, and Ralph aint no spring chicken.

Hmmmmm. . . that’s an interesting strategy.

Incredibly, (and unforgivably, if you’re an NDP supporter), it’s the incumbent party that’s fresher and more forward-looking. Eight of the 13 mainland seats have new ULP faces, most of them young. Seven of those eight new faces come in seats that the ULP won in the last election.

Plans-wise, like I said, the ULP is winning this battle too. They have announced the dates that their “regular” manifesto and “youth” manifesto will be published. They’ve put booklets in the paper. They’ve explained their record, which is pretty solid. And while they’ve been a bit too willing to wallow in the mud with the NDP, their public meetings have generally been more substantive than the opposition’s (especially if Ralph, Luke, Jerrol, Saboto or Ces are speaking).

So, if you’re the NDP, the question is: how do you win if you’re being out-hustled in the vision department and outshone by fresher faces?

The answer is: you don’t. You just don’t.

I believe that the cycle at the start of this posting accurately describes almost every change of power in the Caribbean in the last 30+ years, from Jamaica to Barbados to TnT. Opposition parties win elections when they have fresher faces and better plans. The NDP has neither.

So I think this isn’t their year. I think they’ll lose. I think Arnhim will be ousted as leader after 3 consecutive defeats. And I think that there will be upheaval, and a bunch of new faces will come to the fore of the NDP [Anesia Baptiste, Grant Connell, Kenton Chance, Jomo Thomas(?) and some brilliant young person(s) we haven't thought of yet]. Mitchell, Lynch, Burton, Horne, etc. will fade away. The new faces will bring with them new ideas. The new look NDP will have a better chance in 2015 than the old guard NDP has in 2010.

And my “cycle” will remain a valid and useful political tool. Can we call it the VP Theory of Cyclical Caribbean Incumbency? Coming soon to a UWI seminar near you!

Licks like peas! (this is a loooong post)

Sometimes, as a little boy, you get a spanking. Daddy puts you over his knee and administers a few staccato smacks to convey his displeasure. It hurts, but not too bad. Other times, mummy is waiting at the door with a supple guava branch switch, and the blows rain down from all angles, and you are running, and covering, and hiding, and crying, and wondering what the hell happened, and why is mummy so vex.

Politically, last week’s “no” vote, was definitely the latter. A real "cut ass."

56% to 43% is as resounding as it gets in SVG. Don’t let anybody tell you any different. As far as I know, the only time more Vincentians agreed on anything in a voting booth is when the NDP won all 15 seats in the country. The 12-3 ULP landslide of 2001 was also a 56% majority.

This was a beating.

Now, in the last days of the referendum campaign, I could see that the “yes” was not going to get the required 67% of the vote. But I was certain that they would get the majority of the votes! In fact, if you asked me on the eve of the election, you could have gotten me to predict something in the range of 59% - 62% “yes.”

Just goes to show how little I know.

Maybe it was the Busy Signal show – the biggest crowd in SVG I’ve ever seen. Maybe it was another huge crowd the next day at Rabbacca. Maybe it was the fact that everything that the “no” voters said sounded so angry, and so bitter, and so unrelated to the merits of the constitution, which, in my opinion, remains a pretty good document. I dunno. But I clearly misread the mood of Vincentians.

But I’m not alone in that misreading. If the government thought that 43% was even possible, no way they go through with this referendum. They must have assumed that their floor was something in the mid-50s, with a ceiling in the mid-60s. Otherwise, why even try? And throughout their campaign, they remained resolutely on the high ground, extolling the virtues of the constitution and resisting the mudslinging from the other side. (The only possible exception to this was the Oakes Bros./SCL/passport selling revelations. But I think that was relevant to the constitutional debate as well). You only maintain the high ground if you’re sure that you’re winning or you’re sure that you’ve already lost. I gotta think that they were feeling pretty good about themselves, up until the last minute.

I waited to type this post, first because I was in shock, and second, because I wanted to see the data. I’ve studied it. It aint pretty. Let’s analyse, shall we?

Question #1: What does this “no” vote mean?

This is the $6 million question. The easiest (and wrongest) answer is: “it means that the people of SVG are fully satisfied with their present constitution.” Problem with that answer is that only one side was even talking about the constitution. The other side made this a referendum on the government, no matter what the question on the ballot paper said. In many ways, both sides were talking past each other.

So does the “no” vote mean that Vincentians are dissatisfied with the government? Some of it clearly means exactly that. Many of those who voted “no” were voting against Ralph. Maybe even most of them. But some were also voting against getting rid of the queen. Some were voting out of fear of change. Some were voting against Hugo Chavez (don’t ask). How many? I don’t know. And neither do you.

Was it simply a general expression of dissatisfaction in a rough economic period? Was it a specific attempt to send the ULP a message? Was it a harbinger of the next general election? I don’t know. And I suspect no one will know for sure until we can look back with the benefit of a few years’ hindsight. Sure, everyone is spinning it for their own purposes, but its all hopeful spinning. We’re all flying blind here. This has never happened before in SVG.

Question #2: Will some of the “good ideas” be implemented legislatively?

The “no” voters tried to deflate many of the innovations in the new constitution by saying “you can do that through regular legislation.” So whenever someone said Integrity Commission, Human Rights Commission, Ombudsman, gay marriage, etc., their rejoinder was “big deal! You can do that through regular legislation!” (of course, other things that could be done through regular legislation – details of local gov’t, details of constituency funding, details of land compensation, etc. – the “no” voters wanted included in the constitution, but I digress).

So the question now is: What chance is there that these things will become part of our regular laws?

My guess? Somewhere between slim and none. The problem with regular legislation is that new administrations invariably alter it. NDP passes a law selling passports? ULP abolishes it? NDP passes “greedy bill?” ULP abolishes it. Old Labour Party passed a law on local government? NDP gutted it. NDP passes law on education? ULP amends it. And so on.

So why would I, as an incumbent government, pass a law that will constrain me, that can easily be modified when I leave? Especially when I now have a great excuse not to pass such laws – “What was that? You want an integrity commission? Well, so did we, but that concept was overwhelmingly rejected by the Vincentian people in Nov. 2009.” And who will we, the voters, be, to tell them no? We did vote against it! Similarly, you can kiss reduced powers of the Prime Minister goodbye. When next the PM handpicks some top civil servant, his response to the hue and cry will be “I wanted to give up this power, but the Vincentian people told me that they trust the PM to use it effectively.” I can see it now…

My gut tells me that the reform most likely to be implemented is the two new constituencies. That is something else that can be done with just a parliamentary majority. If I’m the ULP right now, back against the wall, I’m carving out a couple new safe seats. (And for all those who thought that the new constitution said the new boundaries commission couldn’t be challenged in court but the old one could – go ahead and try.)

(Allow me to digress again: did anyone notice that 2,390 people voted in the Northern Grenadines and 1,506 voted in the Southern? For a total of 3,896 people? Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that a Grenadines voter’s vote counts for twice as much as a mainlander? More people voted in North Windward, East St. George, East Kingstown, and South Leeward than did those in both Grenadines seats combined. Yet they only get to pick one representative, and the Grenadines pick two. Put another way, 1,200 votes in the Southern Grenadines is a landslide victory. Same amount in East St. George is a landslide defeat. Mainland votes are very diluted compared to Grenadines votes. It’s also why it’s so easy for the NDP to form a government with less than a majority of the popular vote. 3,000 NDP votes get you two seats in the Grenadines. It gets you one on the mainland. Making the Grenadines two seats was a crude and cynical political ploy unsupported by any demographic data. Glad I got that off my chest, lol)

Question #3: What does this mean for the 2010 elections?

The easiest (and wrongest) answer is that it means that the NDP will win 13 seats to the ULP’s 2, because the “no” vote was in the majority in 13 of the 15 constituencies. The second easiest (and second wrongest) answer is that it means nothing, that “ULP voters” stayed home, and that the election is a different kettle of fish.

Lets look at the numbers, shall we?

29,019 people voted “no.” Twenty-nine thousand votes aint gonna win you a “real” election in SVG. In 2005, the winners got 32,006. In 2001, they got 32,925. In 2005, the losers got 25,653 – only 3,336 less than the “no” vote got last week.

And, keep in mind, that 6,690 new voters have registered between 2005 and now.

In short, if every single “no” goes to the polls and votes NDP in 2010, that doesn’t get them a win. They probably need to find another 4,000 votes on top of that.

Of course, its easier to find 4,000 votes than it is to find 10,500, which is what the ULP will probably need to hold on to office. Because if 29,000 votes don’t win an election, 22,500 isn’t looking so promising either.

But the excuse that “ULP voters didn’t come out”  is just that – an excuse. NDP support increased from 2001 to 2005 by 1,809 votes, while ULP fell by 919. You can say that 919 voters stayed home. I’ll buy that. But you can’t tell me that 9,500 voters stayed home. If that many of "your supporters" stayed home, they don’t support you anymore.

I agree that voter turnout was low. In 2001, 58,398 people voted. In 2005, 57,958 went to the polls – a slight dip of 440 (even though voter registration increased). In the referendum, 52,156 voted. That’s 5,802 less than voted in 2005, and 6,242 less than 2001 (not counting the 6,690 new voters who’ve registered).

Here’s where the ULP “apathetic voter” argument gets a little shaky: In the referendum, 6,242 less people voted (compared to 2001) and “yes” got 6,526 votes less than “no.” Almost the same number, eh? But are you telling me that EVERYONE who stated home from the referendum is a ULP supporter?!? And even if that’s true, odds are that the 6,690 new voters since the last election are probably more pro-NDP than pro-ULP, because new voters tend to be more pro-opposition than pro-incumbent.

So, for the next election, out of a pool of about 13,000 voters (stay-at-homes plus new registrants), the ULP needs about 70% of them to vote incumbent. That’s a tall order.

I will, however, accept that the low turn-out suggests that more of those who stayed home were ULP fans than NDP fans. That seems logical. Opposition voters are always more passionate and eager to stick it in the eye of the incumbents. So I can accept that the ULP will be more competitive in the general elections than the “yes” vote was in the referendum.

Where will they compete? If I accept that ULP voters did not show up, and that they will show up in an election, I have to look at constituencies where “yes” got a percentage in the mid- to high- 40s.  Stay-at-homes could turn that around. Immediately, then, I would concede East Kingstown (38% yes), Central Kingstown (35%), West Kingstown (35), South Leeward (38), North Leeward (39), Northern Grenadines (15) and Southern Grenadines (31) – it would be a whole lot of reenergized ULP supporters to turn that around.

But that’s only seven seats. Seven seats don’t win you an election in SVG.

(another aside: did anyone else notice that Arnhim Eustace's East Kingstown Seat got the smallest referendum "bounce" out of the three Kingstown seats?)

ULP’s “stay at home” referendum voters could make a difference in North Windward (48% yes), South Central Windward (46%), Marriaqua (49%), East St. George (44%), West St. George (44%), and Central Leeward (45%). Of course, the ULP would be counting on North Central Windward (74% yes) and South Windward (52%), as “safe” seats.

(yet another aside: although South Windward was only one of two seats that went "yes," did you notice that, in real numbers, it experienced the biggest swing towards the "no"/NDP side? South Windward was actually the seat with the biggest slippage)

So, if everything broke in the ULP’s favour in the next 12 months, and they got their apathetic voters energised, they’re looking at an 8-7 win. But that, too, is a tall order.

The next year is gonna be interesting.

Question #4: Is constitutional reform in SVG dead?

Yep. Deader than dead. Stick a fork in it. We won’t be reforming our constitution until the Privy Council kicks us out. Or the British end the monarchy. Or gay couples are getting married on Young Island. This is the one we’re stuck with.