ALL AH WE IS ONE: SVG’s opposition

This is a re-post

THERE IS a youtube video in which the leader of the opposition in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Arnhim Eustace, is partying with gay abandon with party supporters following a successful national campaign. It is perhaps the one public image in which Eustace appears relaxed, at ease with himself and genuinely happy.

Unfortunately, however, the celebration captured on Youtube was not for an “electoral victory” but followed the no-vote in a referendum on proposed constitutional changes by the Ralph Gonsalves Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration, among which included the move to republican status and prime ministerial term limits.

Following a fourth general election defeat in December 2015 after having been handed the prime ministership by James Mitchell, it is clear that Arnhim Eustace’s political life is over. Clear, except to Eustace.

Instead of magnanimously conceding defeat, announcing his resignation from the leadership and fostering national healing, Eustace has continued with the politics of division which has defined his opposition style from its earliest beginnings.

Thus, the very week of the swearing-in of the new administration saw scenes of yellow-shirted National Democratic Party (NDP) supporters demonstrating against the results, attempting to block the formal ceremony, inclusive of physically obstructing the governor general’s official vehicle. Certainly, after four failed attempts, and with the last election bringing an exact result as the previous one in terms of seats, and with Eustace’s NDP losing ground to the governing ULP, with Eustace himself having to fight for his political life in his constituency, the instinctive response of a genuine democrat would have been to accept defeat and to prepare his party and country for the long march ahead.

Instead, all the evidence points to Eustace’s NDP continuing in the same old way, allowing the hurt of two tantalisingly narrow defeats to spawn a dogged refusal to accept reality. Without pause, the country has continued with its politicised NDP and ULP radio stations and call-in programmes, vitriolic political commentary, personal attacks and the absence of consensus on the common developmental needs of the country. Above all, there is no discussion within the NDP of leadership succession.

It would be a mistake, however, to see these weaknesses as a St Vincent problem. Several Caribbean countries have lived through the farce of a consistently defeated opposition leader refusing to contribute to democratic growth by bowing out gracefully. Most Caribbean parties are devoid of both the institutional frameworks and democratic cultures to allow for smooth and unproblematic leadership transitions at the right time. Why should a twice-defeated opposition leader be entitled to a third attempt?

Too often, our opposition leaders are driven solely by electoral opportunism. Had Eustace supported the necessary constitutional reform, at least today history would have remembered him as a co-architect of a new St Vincent. Instead, he is remembered only as a frustrated prime ministerial aspirant.

Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008@live.com.