ST. LUCIA-POLITICS: British MP Remarks Spark Controversy

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Patrick Smikle

CASTRIES, May 22 1997 (IPS) - Has globalisation now reached the political process? Are there no longer any limits on the support which like-minded political parties give each other, even at election time? At what point does support become interference?

Those are some of the questions which regional journalists and political and commentators are asking as they analyse the latest controversy to hit the St. Lucia election campaign.

The issue stems from comments made earlier this week at an opposition St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) campaign rally by British Labour Party (BLP) Member of Parliament, Claire Ward. “I look at the audience here today and I see so many young people, so many people who are looking for a chance, for a future. And that is why you must have a Labour Government here on Friday,” Ward told a cheering crowd of SLP supporters.

“It means so much for you to have a Labour Government here when we have a Labour Government in Britain, if we’re going to be able to work together, and we must, for your future and for ours.”

As expected the comments angered the leadership of the ruling United Workers Party (UWP).

Banana Idustry Minister, Peter Josie described Ward’s statement of support for the SLP as “a throwback to colonial times.” Party Leader, Prime Minister, Dr.Vaughan Lewis was vitriolic when he addressed a campaign meeting later.

“When you meet the lady on the streets, I want you to say only one thing to her, since you have a British Labour Party government back in power, will you as your first act remove the legislation that banned Caribbean people from coming into England in 1965, legislation put by the British Labour Party when they came to power.”

He also fired off a note of protest to the British government, charging interference in St. Lucia’s political affairs.

The response of the British Labour Party was to reject this charge. Ward, in a statement from the Party’s headquarters pointed out, was a parliamentary backbencher and not a member of the British government. Her comments were an exchange of support between fraternal parties and not a statement of policy from the government.

Speaking in her own defence Ward dismissed Josie as missing the point. “Whatever happens on Friday in your elections, whatever government is elected, then the British government will no doubt work with that St. Lucian government, whatever political persuasion it is, if that is the democratic free choice of the St. Lucian people,” she told an interviewer from the BBC in Castries.

She also pointed to the historical relationship between the SLP and the BLP. “We have connections with the St.Lucia Labour Party and it is appropriate that the St.Lucian Labour Party would wish me to talk to their supporters, which is what I was doing,” she said.

She also emphasised the ideological similarities which underlined the relationship between the two parties, declaring that…”we have an interest in seeing Labour governments or socialist governments being elected in many parts of this world…I don’t see that there is anything wrong in that.”

These points have also been emphasised by SLP Communications Consultant, Claudius Francis. He told IPS that the relationship between the BLP and the SLP goes back to the formation of the St. Lucian party when BLP members gave assistance and guidance.

He charged Lewis and the UWP with inconsistency and hypocrisy noting that the ruling party was getting outside assistance. “There are four members of the Dominica Freedom Party assisting them in the electoral process,” Francis told IPS.

“There are members of the Jamaica Labour Party. There are people from all over the Caribbean. They have political operatives from the various political parties linked to the CDU (Caribbean Democratic Union).”

He pointed out that former Prime Minister, John Compton and later Lewis himself, had been openly endorsed at UWP conventions by Prime Minister James Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Prime Minister, Keith Mitchell of Grenada.

“Miss Ward is free to participate in fraternal greetings as are members of the CDU for the government,” Francis said.

Sub-regional political commentators point out that cross border linkages and collaboration between like-minded political parties in the Eastern Caribbean are not new. These linkages, they say were intensified “in the (Ronald) Reagan years after the U.S. invasion of Grenada” with the formation of the CDU, a grouping of the Caribbean conservative parties.

Instances and events, they highlight, include the 1984 meeting of the leaders of these parties on St. Vincent’s Union Island, at which three of Grenada’s political parties were forced into a coalition to prevent what would have been an embarrassing election of Eric Gairy’s Grenada United Labour Party to power.

Another is the involvement of Antigua government communications consultant, Hartley Henry, with the St.Kitts-Nevis Labour Party’s (SKNLP) 1995 general election campaign. The involvement of the controversial Henry is said to have stemmed from the support of the Antigua Labour Party for the SKNLP.

One of these commentators, Dr.Adrian Fraser, makes a distinction between logistical, technical and other forms of low- keyed support of one political party for another, and the kind of high profile platform statements made by Ward i St.Lucia.

“Traditionally these parties have had their networks regionally and internationally and they have given support to their associates, but this has often been in the background as consultants,” the Vincentian historian and political scientist told IPS.

He said the statements attributed to Ward could be interpreted as indicating the possibility of increased British assistance, especially with the banana industry, were St.Lucians to elect a Labour government. This could have serious implications for relations between the two countries were the UWP to be re-elected, he said.

Fraser also made a distinction between speeches made by Prime Ministers Keith Mitchell and James Mitchell and former Dominica Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, at UWP events, and the direct involvement of Ward in the election campaign.

“I cannot think of many examples of representatives, especially of foreign political parties, who have actually been involved on political platforms,” he told IPS.

One such involvement was mentioned by another commentator. He told IPS that former Jamaica Labour Party MP, Joan Gordon-Webley, had been involved in all aspects of the New National Party’s campaign during Grenada’s 1995 general elections.

Still Fraser maintains that this level of involvement is rare, even moreso when the outside personality and party is non- Caribbean. This, he says, makes the issue an even more sensitive one.

“I would go further and say that maybe in this era of globalisation when we’re talking about the removal of trade barriers, the revolution in communications and so on, that this might be part of a process that involves politics and that we’re not only speaking about removing trade barriers, we’re speaking about opening the whole political process. Maybe that is a development that is coming on stream,” says Fraser.

With at least two more national elections slated to take place in the Caribbean over the next 12 months, debate on that issue will almost certainly continue after Friday’s St.Lucia poll.