POLITICS-DOMINICA: Election Upset Confounds Pollsters

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Patrick Smikle

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, Feb 2 2000 (IPS) - After 20 years in the opposition, the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) is once again at the helm of that country’s government, winning in 10 of the 21 constituencies in Monday’s general election – just one seat short of an overall majority.

The once-powerful Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), which picked up just two seats, will likely be the DLP’s coalition partner.

And Edison James, after one four-and-half year term as prime minister, will be Leader of the Opposition, his United Workers Party (UWP) having secured only nine seats.

James’ successor is Rosie Douglas, the 58-year-old leader of the DLP. Douglas joined the DLP in 1980, and has held a seat in parliament for most of the last 15 years.

The election results have confounded pundits and pollsters in the region. James had called early elections on Jan 1, seemingly catching the opposition off-guard, but the move appears to have backfired.

Three opinion polls conducted at weekly intervals over the one- month campaign predicted that not only would the ruling UWP win Monday’s election, but it would see a net gain in parliamentary seats, from its previous 12.

Observers also thought the party would surpass the 34.36 percent of the popular vote that it won in the June 1995 polls.

The last survey conducted by the Caribbean Opinion Poll and Marketing Association (COPMA) placed the UWP’s popularity rating at 48.67 percent, just days before the general election.

Even as journalists questioned COPMA’s credentials and the opposition parties dismissed the results of its poll, political commentators were making similar predictions.

“I think the ruling party will still get more seats than any single party,” said Dominican businessman and newspaper columnist Gordon Moreau.

University of the West Indies political scientist Dr. Neville Duncan, like other observers, is busy analysing why James’ tactic failed.

He now says that while James and the UWP could boast of unquestioned achievements, especially in James’ leadership of the Caribbean’s struggle to retain a preferential share of the UK banana market, the party had not done enough to counter opposition charges that the government was corrupt.

From the outset, the corruption charges – including allegations of bribery, influence-peddling and nepotism – seemed to be the most potent weapon in the opposition parties’ arsenal.

Edison James consistently responded that the UWP would withdraw any candidate, even himself, if the opposition could provide credible proof of untoward activities.

But any positive effect that response might have had, say observers, was blunted by additional attacks from two non-partisan sources.

First, Roman Catholic priest Fr. Clement Jolly, writing in the weekly Chronicle newspaper, accused the government of wholesale corruption and attempting to bribe voters. He said that cash, duty-free cars and even relief aid donated to help those affected by Hurricane Lenny last November were being used as currency to “buy votes.”

“What kind of democracy is this when politicians endeavour to win a citizen’s vote by a few sheets of plywood, galvanised iron sheets or a bag or two of cement or a hundred dollars?” Jolly asked in his article.

And last weekend, the president of the Dominica Association of Industry and Commerce (DAIC), Michael Astaphan, accused the James administration of “institutionalising corruption.”

In an open letter to the government, published by Dominica’s weekend newspapers, Astaphan wrote of the DAIC’s futile attempts to get James to “institute some form of inquiry into allegations of corruption” against the government.

James himself has put the defeat down to an electoral deal between the two opposition parties – even though two weeks before the poll, he had dismissed the notion that the alliance would have a significant impact on the outcome.

After months of repeated and contradictory statements on the possibility of an electoral alliance, the opposition parties reached an agreement just weeks before the polls, which saw the Labour Party withdraw its candidate from the constituency being contested by DFP leader Charles Savarin.

In turn, the DFP withdrew candidates from two key constituencies, including the seat being contested by DLP Leader Rosie Douglas, permitting a two-way contest between the UWP and the DLP.

The formalisation of a coalition government had been stalled by a recount in the Roseau Central (formerly represented by three-term prime minister Eugenia Charles), where Charles Savarin won by just six votes.

However, Douglas announced Tuesday night that the Labour Party had received written confirmation from the other victorious DFP candidate, Frederick Baron, that he would support the DLP in parliament.

DLP Chairman Ambrose George had spoken about the possibility of the Labour Party forming a minority government, but observers said that was unlikely. Even more unlikely, they said, was the DFP aligning with the UWP to keep the James administration in power.

And so, 58-year-old Rosie Douglas, a political activist all of his adult life, is now set to become the fifth prime minister of Dominica.

A left-wing student activist in the 1960s, Rosie Douglas was jailed in Canada after an anti-racism protest resulted in the burning down of the computer centre at the Sir George Williams University in Montreal.

He was deported to Dominica, where he immediately became involved in the pro-independence movement. Douglas was first elected to parliament in 1985. When his older brother Michael Douglas died in 1992, he won Michael’s Portsmouth seat in a by- election and has held it with increasing majorities in two general elections.

Douglas is known to have developed extensive international connections over the years, especially with the European social-democratic parties in the Socialist International.

He has been a firm defender of the Cuban Revolution, travelling repeatedly to that country and arranging scholarships for Dominican youth to study there, even when most Caribbean politicians avoided relations with Havana for fear of angering Washington.

At the same time, he has steered a centrist path in the DLP’s domestic policy. The economic programmes outlined in the current election manifesto emphasise a private sector-led economy. Following the party’s victory, he reiterated a promise to have the private sector name one government senator.

The Labour Party he leads has gone through major changes.

The 45-year old party formed the government of Dominica from 1960-79, when sustained street demonstrations and other protest action against its increasingly unpopular leader, then prime minister Patrick John, forced the DLP from office.

Rosie Douglas was a leading figure in those protests, which resulted in Dominica’s first coalition government, an alliance of the groups that had brought down the Patrick John administration. It lasted just over 12 months.