Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler By Earl Bousquet
There are times when the humans in us see things that we wish we didn’t, or never thought we would.
At a time when the world is turning differently and the Caribbean and Latin American region is in turmoil, with every government facing the most difficult times since taking office, when genuine leadership matters more than ever, most traditional political parties continue to trade in refined ‘Pork Barrel’ and ‘Chicken-and-Rum’ politics at election time.
Much of what’s playing out in Saint Lucia today as the island heads towards its next General Elections is regrettable to the many who expect Opposition parties and Leaders to summon the courage to stand-up and face current realities.
Voters expect political parties to adjust to the essential task of offering serious alternatives that can allow undecided and new voters to make one of the most important decisions in their lives — on Election Day.
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Saint Lucia’s Date with Destiny is still unknown – as close or far away as anyone can imagine — and the Prime Minister has until October 2026 to pick-and-choose a date to ring the election bell.
But the Opposition is running-out of air and in dire need of campaign oxygen, thus resorting to desperate actions and statements that betray a hidden fear of facing another electoral defeat.
The leadership of the United Workers Party (UWP) is flogging dead horses, using failed old tactics to try to be relevant in these changed new times.
Instead of following the example of the Leader of the United Workers Party (UWP) of neighbouring Dominica, Edison James, to co-sign the joint letter by present and former CARICOM Prime Ministers calling for a peaceful solution to Washington’s dispute with Venezuela, the Saint Lucia Opposition Leader clearly opted out.
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Saint Lucia UWP Leader and his campaign team have also been clearly-misleadingly voters, that if elected (whenever) they will cause President Donald Trump to give special immigration status to Saint Lucians currently under visa restrictions.
And having reigned for five long years over the utter disregard for the rules and regulations outlined in the island’s Citizenship by Investment Program (CIP) reducing the price for Saint Lucian Citizenship (and forcibly others in the OECS) to the lowest-of-the-low, the man accused by a then-fellow CARICOM Leader of setting out to win ‘A race to the bottom’ is now complaining about remedial measures governments today, including Saint Lucia’s, have to take to comply with external impositions and demands to address abuses registered while he was at the helm of the Ship of State.
The brazen way in which the Saint Lucia Opposition Leader tried at this week’s sitting of parliament to chastise, berate and belittle the government for agreeing to regional measures to continue removing the island’s CIP from the mire of misrule that’s emerged from under deep cover over the past four years was enough to force Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre to wisely elect to save himself from a costly yet unnecessarily excessive heartbeat by simply taking his seat in mid-flight.
Obviously, the Prime Minister simply couldn’t believe he was hearing what he was, from the person who amended the CIP’s laws in ways that allowed him to choose when and how to account for the program’s earnings and how its revenues were spent.
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Nothing was known — until after the 2021 General Elections brought Regime Change — about the mysterious CIP Escrow Account with a single signatory — of the Master Designer of a controversial billion-dollar mega local tourism and horse-racing project for the South of the island that hasn’t delivered any of its brightly-painted dreams.
A Deputy Opposition Leader who’s defied almost every moral logic in a political career no-less dotted than those he points fingers at, grabs at everything — from superstition to absolute departures from truth and facts, to blindly predicting the unpredictable (like when the Prime Minister will rung the election bell).
And toeing-the-line in full-tow are the wannabe Prime Ministers among the new candidates who don’t seem to realize they first have to win a seat and their party first has to win the next General Elections.
Random polls by local radio and TV stations and internal UWP polls on the current government’s performance in comparison with the previous administration return overwhelming declarations of appreciation of and support for the Pierre administration’s record since 2021.
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The opening of the Saint Jude Hospital is a national achievement project everyone’s looking forward to, no-less by UWP supporters in the island’s South who’ll benefit from the return of their regional hospital stronger and better — and poised for healthier future services.
It’s opening will not only be a deserved boost for the SLP-led administration, but will also open the way for the next government of Saint Lucia to preside over the return of the George Odlum sporting facility to its intended Olympic status, as a national and regional sporting hub.
True to expected form, the decaying minds in today’s UWP’s leadership continue to behave like they still believe that Saint Lucian electors — from the land that produced the highest number of Nobel Laureates per capita and the fastest woman on Planet Earth — are the most-gullible and easiest voters to mislead.
The Opposition Leader refuses to accept that Saint Lucians dumped the UWP in 2021 because they were convinced that after two terms (2006 to 2011 and 2016 to 2021) its leadership had utterly failed to deliver on their repeated election promises.
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But Caribbean voters have matured in the past 25 years and today vote in ways that show them that performance – the most reliable yardstick to measure every government and ruling party — beats ‘Ole Talk’ anytime and every time.
And that’s the yardstick by which the voters in the island’s next General Elections will choose the next government – and not on the basis of recycled promises that defy reality, ignore truth and don’t even sound possible.
