ST. LUCIA-POLITICS: More Women Enter Political Arena

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Patrick Smikle

CASTRIES, May 16 1997 (IPS) - A feature of next week’s general election in the eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia is the record number of women candidates contesting that poll – all of four!

If just one of these women wins, there will be more elected female members of a new St. Lucia parliament, than there were when the House of Assembly was prorogued earlier this month to make way for general elections.

Leader of the ruling United Workers Party (UWP), Prime Minister Dr. Vaughn Lewis, is on record as being in favour of more women becoming involved in politics and taking on leadership roles in the country. The UWP is fielding just one female candidate out of the 41 vying for the 17 seats.

Last August, opposition St. Lucia Labour Party Leader, Dr. Kenny Anthony, told IPS that the SLP was committed to promoting the participation of more women in the political process.

Two of the SLP’s 17 candidates are women. The fourth woman who will face the St. Lucia electorate on May 23 is an independent candidate.

The general opinion is that St. Lucian women stay away from politics because of the mud-slinging and character assassination that has become an integral part of electoral contests and political debates.

Indeed last July, Lewis called for new “rules of engagement” that would prohibit abuse of women contesting elections. “The seemingly unrestrained mud-slinging that characterises local politics serves as a deterrent to female politicians,” he told participants in a seminar on ‘Women in Decision Making.’

If the political parties cannot agree to exercise self-control, Prime Minister Lewis said, then the women must “insist that this be done through the legislative process.”

Attorney General and Minister of Women’s Affairs, Senator Lorraine Williams, the only woman in Vaughn Lewis’ cabinet, is for more women becoming involved in the political process. But she warns; “They should know they enter with the cards heavily stacked against them. They must be prepared for character assassination of the worst kind.

“They must be prepared for the sick mentalities which see them only as sexual objects and not as serious forward thinking persons with a tremendous contribution to make.”

She expects that reality to discourage prospective women politicians. “After all, who wants to be lied upon, disrespected and insulted, simply because an opponent is trying to score cheap political points,” she asks.

And for those women who decide to go ahead regardless, Williams, who is also President of the Inter-American Commission on Women (CIM) encourages them to “hit back at those who engage in gutter politics.” Williams who was one of five appointed women senators in the last parliament, encourages St. Lucian women to “forge ahead (into electoral politics) secure in our knowledge and firm in our conviction that we can make a difference.”

One of the women taking that advice is nursing supervisor, Lydia Harraksingh. She had expected to be the UWP candidate to replace John Compton in Micoud-South, but after a contentious selection process which both contenders said was flawed, the party favoured educator Arsene James. Refusing to bow to the Party’s ruling, Harraksingh has registered as an independent candidate.

The lone UWP woman candidate is 26-year old Leonne Theodore, a para-legal worker in a Castries law firm and a part-time law student at the University of the West Indies. Despite her youth Theodore is a veteran UWP activist, having served for years in its youth arm.

One IPS source says the three women candidates are mere tokens. None of them is running in what could be regarded as safe seats. For example, the UWP’s Theodore is contesting a seat which has been held by the opposition St. Lucia Labour Party for the last 18 years.

But the Labour Party’s Sarah Flood is in an even more daunting contest. The 28-year old lawyer has been handed the onerous task of trying to unseat Lewis himself, in Castries-South. This constituency has never been won by the SLP and had been held by former UWP Trade Minister, George Mallet, for nearly 38 years until he stepped down in February 1996 to make way for Lewis.

A former high-school teacher and social worker with the Caribbean Conference of Churches, Flood was ‘called to the bar’ in 1995 and has been in private practice since January, 1996.

If she is a member of the next parliament, says one source, it will be as an appointed senator, not an elected member.

Some observers say independent candidate Harraksingh stands the best chance of making any impact on the outcome of the election. Noting her long history as a UWP activist, these observers say she could split the UWP support and allow the SLP candidate to take the seat which was won by John Compton for the UWP in several elections over 43 years.

Others look favourably to the other SLP woman candidate, who will create history if she wins on May 23. At 21, Menissa Rambally would be the youngest parliamentarian in the history of St. Lucia, a record now held by her party leader, Kenny Anthony.

She was selected by the SLP’s Castries-Southeast constituency group to replace her father, Hezekiah Rambally, who died of a heart attack late last year. Her UWP opponent will be Dr. Josiah Rambally, her uncle.

Menissa Rambally’s selection was criticised by the ruling UWP as an attempt by the opposition party to capitalise on sentiments around Hezekiah Rambally’s death. However, IPS sources say her selection would also have been influenced by the SLP’s attempts to appeal to young voters.

Of the more than 15,000 new voters on the electoral list, the overwhelming majority are said to be young people. “They’re coming forward as a symbol of maturity” says Electoral Commission Chairman, McLair Daniel. “They have a right and they’re going to use it.”

This development is not lost on the two major parties as they make statements and engage in various manoeuvres to win the youth vote. “Change will come to St.Lucia through its young people” says SLP Deputy Leader, Phillip J.Pierre.

And the UWP says the fact that young people are registering to vote “symbolises their interest in maintaining good government and ensuring that the country does not fall into the wrong hands.”

The greater interest in politics being shown by young people is described by the National Youth Council (NYC) as a welcome departure from the past. “Over the last few years young people had been gravitating away from politics because they had been demoralised by the system. They had lost confidence in the system because it had not delivered to them what it promised to deliver,” says NYC President, Henry Mangal.

The NYC has also warned the young women candidates not to allow themselves to be used as “window dressing” by the political parties, which is what several observers think is being done.