ST. LUCIA-POLITICS: How the United Workers Party Fell

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Patrick Smikle

CASTRIES, May 27 1997 (IPS) - Political analysts are citing a deteriorating economy, governmental corruption, the autocratic styles of former leaders and a lack of organisation as the main reasons for the United Workers Party’s crushing defeat in last Friday’s general elections in St. Lucia.

At the same time, these analysts also give high marks to new Prime Minister, Dr. Kenny Anthony, for the “organisation, focus and sense of purpose” which they say he has brought to the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP).

After being in power for 15 continuous years, and after governing St. Lucia for all but two-and-a half years since 1964, and having gone into the election with a 12 to five majority in parliament, the UWP crashed to a one to 16 defeat. It lost ‘safe seats’ such as that held by former Prime Minister, John Compton, for 43 years.

Party leader and outgoing Prime Minister, Dr. Vaughan Lewis, lost his seat, one which had been held by former Deputy Prime Minister — now Governor General — George Mallet, for 39 years.

“This election was about three things,” St.Lucian management consultant, Dr. Didacus Jules, told IPS. “It was a rejection of the UWP and its style of governance. It was a chastising of the party for its failure to institute the new governance it had promised, and thirdly, it was an embrace of the new vision that the Labour Party was able to project.”

While agreeing generally with Jules’s view, other analysts put corruption and economic downturn at the top of the list.

“There were very serious allegations of corruption involving government ministers,” said Dr. James Fletcher, one of these analysts.

Another analyst pointed to the ‘U.N. funds scandal’ which came to light in 1995 and implicated the country’s then U.N. Ambassador, several senior government officials and then Prime Minister Compton.

It was alleged that the UWP government, in order to raise funds for its 1992 re-election campaign, had used a dummy research foundation to secure United Nations funds for fictitious community projects. Said one observer: “The scandal exposed the seamy underside of a government that had been in power for a long time and the way they could manipulate the levers of government, including international connections, in order to have their way.”

With regards to the economy, Fletcher points to a sharp decline in the banana industry. While the tourism is not i such dire straits, he says, “it is not doing well enough to take up the slack.” At the same time, “several other areas of te economy have actually contracted. The economy is clearly not doing as well as it was in 1992 when the UWP’s election slogan was WATCH YOUR BREAD. What the SLP was saying in 1997 was that there was no bread left to watch,” Fletcher adds.

There is consensus among analysts and observers also that the poll result is as much a rejection of Lewis as it is that of the UWP.

They say that when Lewis took over the UWP leadership, there were expectations and promises of a change in the kind of arrogance and aloofness from the people which had characterised it under Compton.

“Lewis is a technocrat ad people expected him to operate a more consultative form of government,” says Fletcher. “This was not to be.” He says Lewis’s approach to governance was no less autocratic than Compton’s. Disputes in which the new Prime Minister became embroiled as a result of this approach, had had a negative impact on the way in which he was perceived.

He had not responded to a letter from the local Guild of (university) Graduates about organising debates as part of the election campaign. A letter from the St. Lucia Media Workers Association (SLMWA) asking for clarification of remarks he had made about the press, was returned unopened.

This had in turn led to the SLMWA organising a partial, but debilitating boycott of the government and the ruling party in the print media. Comments that “We’ll deal with them (taken to mean his political opponents) after the elections,” were taken as a signal of vindictiveness and “didn’t endear him to St. Lucians,” another observer said.

IPS sources also point out that there are persons in the UWP who remained dissatisfied with the way in which Lewis was imposed on the Party by Compton. They note the disputes over candidate selection and the fact that the ruling party’s full slate of candidates was not named until just days before Lewis announced the polling date.

Of significance also, they say, is that the formal launching of the UWP manifesto, having been twice delayed, did not take place until just days before the poll.

All this is compared with the SLP, which, following the contentious removal of Julian Hunte in February last year, and the election of Anthony as the new leader in March, had become an efficient and well organised unit. “The level of re-organisation and re-engineering which he brought to the Labour Party gave it new confidence in itself,” said one observer.

The party had selected a slate of candidates before the end of last year. In doing so it had used a primary process which helped these candidates establish stronger links with their constituents. It had published a manifesto which Fletcher describes as “an excellent document.”

A contrast is also drawn between the campaign approaches of the two parties. Observers say the UWP erred in not campaigning on its unquestioned successes in guiding the development of infrastructural projects in independent St. Lucia. It had instead chosen to use “scare tactics,” reminding the electorate of the infighting and instability which characterised and eventually destroyed the 1979-82 SLP government.

But, says Fletcher, “many of the people voting (in this election) were too young to remember what went on then (in 1979-82) and others simply couldn’t care less.” He points out also that three of the politicians involved in that fiasco have since joined the UWP. Two, Peter Josie and Michael Pilgrim, were UWP candidates on Friday.

The SLP on the other hand “tried to articulate a vision of St. Lucia in the twenty-first century,” said another analyst, while hammering away at allegations of corruption in the government. He says also that the SLP fielded a slate of candidates who were younger, more qualified and functioned more like a team, than did the UWP slate.

And as the UWP looks ahead, the consensus is that there will have to be a major overhaul and rebuilding of the party. But there is agreement also that its only successful candidate, former Educatio Minister, Louis George, has neither the capacity nor the stature to do this.

Doubts are also being expressed as to whether Lewis can now command the support to do this. Some observers say the same personal traits which contributed to his defeat will prevent him from guiding this rebuilding effort.

Already there is speculation that 71-year old Compton will come out of retirement, if only for a brief period, to prevent what some see as looming fragmentation.

And what of the new government?

“We pledge to govern in a charitable, compassionate, just, transparent, honest, and sensible manner, and with your help, to create a St. Lucia of which we all can be proud,” Anthony said in one of his first post election statements.

“Kenny Anthony and the SLP have to be aware of the very high expectations of the St. Lucian electorate,” says Fletcher. “They are going to expect several things to be done in an unreasonably short period of time. They expect the corruption in the public sector to be cleaned up. They expect the disenfranchisement which many St. Lucians feel, to be addressed.”

He says the new government will have to move quickly and in a situation “where money is not flowing into the economy in the way it was in the 1980s when John Compton presided over the period of greatest infrastructural growth in St. Lucia.”

This, he sees as the challenge now facing Anthony and his young, relatively inexperienced team.

The new Prime Minister probably agrees. He has followed up Saturday’s pledge “not to let you down,” with a warning to St. Lucians that the country is facing difficult economic times.