Last week’s elections in the tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petit Martinique have added to the governmental changes which have been occurring in the region over the last year and a half. In St Lucia, Jamaica and Barbados and now in Grenada, governments were seeking renewals after extended periods in office, while in the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islalnds, the ruling parties were evicted after one term.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), under the leadership of Mr Tillman Thomas, now assumes office in Grenada after a series of defeats since 1990 at the hands of Dr Keith Mitchell’s New National Party (NNP). Both Dr Mitchell and Mr Thomas had served in the party of that name from 1984 to 1990, under the prime ministership of Mr Herbert Blaize when it won elections with the return of conventional electoral politics to Grenada after the demise of Maurice Bishop’s People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) and his party, the New Jewel Movement.
Mr Thomas himself was imprisoned for two years during the period of PRG rule, and is reported to have observed, “During the 1980s I stood for free speech and was imprisoned for it. I have subsequently learnt to resist authoritarian rule through established institutions, such as the legislature, the judiciary and an enlightened party.” He has now led his party to victory after thirteen years in opposition, and vows to practise a politics of “openness and transparency” and of “inclusion.” He asserts that particularly in respect of the latter, he has deliberately chosen two ministers, the Attorney General and the Minister of Education – persons not overtly members of his party – from the arena of what is now called ‘civil society.’
The defeat of Dr Mitchell and his NNP have been attributed to allegations of corruption and to a tendency on the part of the Prime Minister to high-handedness or ‘one-manism,’ allegations not unfamiliar in the region. It appears that Dr Mitchell felt that these allegations would be overridden by the electorate’s perceptions of his management of a fairly successful recovery from the recent hurricane, and the fact that the government’s attempt to decisively turn the economy in the direction of tourism has also had some degree of success. Dr Mitchell’s campaign also emphasized what was deemed to be a perception of Mr Thomas as a ‘weak’ leader, an accusation reinforced by the fact that there are some elements of the old New Jewel Movement in the NDC. But the fact of the matter is that the NDC lost the previous elections in 2003 by only one seat, an indication that the electorate’s support for the NNP was waning. So the recent 11-6 victory of the NDC would seem to confirm a trend of disenchantment not dissimilar from what occurred in St Lucia and Jamaica in the elections previous to the ones which the ruling parties lost in those countries.
It is not unlikely also, that as in other countries, the recent, apparently sudden and therefore unexpected, increases in prices and the cost of living, and an apparent bewilderment on the part of governments as to how to respond, would have increased the temptation to ‘try the other side.’ In St Lucia, Barbados, and now in Grenada, the opposition parties both ran campaigns partly based on lowering the cost of living, and on their ability to sustain the economies’ rates of growth in the face of an emerging recession in the Western world. But if the performance so far of the new government in St Lucia, and the recent Budget statement in Barbados are guides, Mr Tillman Thomas’ government will not have an easy time in fulfilling his promises in that regard.
We can probably anticipate that the line of policy of Dr Mitchell, particularly in respect of the economy, will be followed by the new government. Grenada since the mid-1990s, has virtually decided to turn its economy towards tourism and related services, and including health/educational services following the relative success of the St George’s University there. For over a decade and half, the country’s banana production has been minimal; and while there has been some stability in nutmeg production, the recent hurricane was a major setback. The country’s financial arrangements have been partly shielded by the constraints of the collective Eastern Caribbean Central Bank serving all the OECS states, though the Mitchell government has sometimes had recourse to what have been considered unorthodox schemes for attracting investment.
It is probably in that context that we are likely to see, on the political front, the new government attempting to establish or reinforce measures that come under the general theme of ‘integrity in public life.’ Further in terms of governance, more deference is, at least initially, likely to be given to the role of the trades unions, important ones having been alienated from the NNP government.
In ideological terms, to the extent that this term has meaning presently in our region, the new ruling party has been perceived as ‘social democratic’ and generally sympathetic to the Labour parties in the region. Dr Mitchell’s NNP, constructed after the 1983 intervention, had been a member of the anti-communist coalition, the Caribbean Democratic Union, that reflected the Cold War differences in Europe between the Christian Democratic parties and the Social International parties in that continent. But of course Mr Thomas was originally a member of the party, as led by Herbert Blaize, the electoral beneficiary of the American
In regional affairs, it is almost certain that the NDC government will continue the previous one’s commitment to a more cohesive Eastern Caribbean integration movement through the establishment of the planned OECS Economic Union. But no doubt too, the new Prime Minister will have to give consideration to the suggestion recently made by Prime Minister Manning of Trinidad and Tobago, for some form of political/constitutional relationship to be established between his country and willing Eastern Caribbean countries. In that context, it will be recalled that after the demise of the Federation of the West Indies, it was Mr Blaize’s government which accepted the proposal from Dr Eric Williams that willing Eastern Caribbean territories might join in a unitary state with Trinidad and Tobago. That initiative came to nought. And of course, Mr Manning’s proposal is still in the realm of ideas.
Finally, the new government will no doubt want to review the current Caricom decisions on the pace of implementation of the CSME, the utility of Caricom’s decision-making and implementation systems in the new global environment, and on its approach to the recently initialled Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union. But discussions on all these issues will, most likely, initially be undertaken within the framework of the OECS.
