Alleged arson attacks on the Venezuelan Embassy and the Organisation of American States (OAS) office in St Kitts and Nevis, two Sundays ago, served to place the spotlight on the health of that country’s democracy. The political atmosphere there has been tense since the fires, especially as Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas has linked the incidents to opposition protests. Opposition leader Mark Brantley has himself condemned the acts and described the Prime Minister’s comments as “unfortunate.” Conspiracy theories abound, although it is difficult to ascertain what political advantage – for either the opposition or, for that matter, the government – could be gained from targeting the two diplomatic offices.
Dr Douglas has been in power now since 1994 and is facing a no-confidence motion, filed on December 11, 2012, in a parliament he no longer controls, due to defections by two former government ministers – his former deputy prime minister, Sam Condor and his former foreign affairs minister, Dr Timothy Harris. The issue is currently before the country’s courts, with the combined opposition seeking to force the government to have the motion debated, although the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that this cannot happen until the court rules on several other matters filed by the Speaker of Parliament.
A no-confidence vote would almost certainly bring down his government and the Prime Minister’s evasiveness is understandable, if not acceptable. But with parliament rendered impotent, the Prime Minister is effectively ruling by fiat and Mr Brantley is calling on citizens to ensure that the country does not fall prey to what he terms a “creeping dictatorship.”
Last Friday, the three-party opposition coalition, Team Unity, took to the streets of Basseterre for the third time in a year, demanding that the Prime Minister do, in Mr Condor’s words, “what is right,” ie either return to parliament or call an election. Dr Douglas has, however, declared that he will call elections “according to the constitutional dictates” and when “when the conditions are right.”
The cynical view is that this will be when he is happy with constituency boundary changes and when his St Kitts and Nevis Labour Party has amassed enough funds to fly in voters from the diaspora to pad the electoral register in its favour – a purportedly common practice in the small island states of the Eastern Caribbean, where the presence of a few hundred more voters in a constituency can tip the balance.
This unhappy situation has been allowed to fester for over a year, without any pressure from Dr Douglas’s Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) or Caricom colleagues. Caricom’s Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas makes no mention of democracy and its Charter of Civil Society, whilst dedicating an article to good governance, is toothless, since it is an instrument that relies more on moral suasion than being legally binding in any member state. In short, Caricom has no established mechanism for dealing with breaches of or threats to the democratic order by forces seeking to remove a government outside of the electoral process or with the subversion of democracy by a sitting government itself.
Indeed, in August last year, St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, currently the Caricom chairman, questioned the rationale for OECS, Caricom or even Commonwealth intervention, asking, “Can a regional or international organisation intervene in the internal affairs of a country where there is no public disorder or a breakdown of law and order, where there is just a political conflict which is still being played out, where the internal processes are not exhausted, internal processes here meaning the legal processes which have been engaged by the very persons who are complaining?”
This will not do. The prolonged crisis in St Kitts and Nevis appears to be worsening. The alleged arson attacks in St Kitts and Nevis are symbolic of a neighbour’s house that is on fire, but no leader in the region appears willing or able to throw water on it. Caricom has taken an admirable stand on the injustice of the September 23, 2013 ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Dominican Republic on nationality, which threatens the legal and human rights of thousands of citizens of mainly Haitian descent. But Caricom is turning a Nelson’s eye to the erosion of democracy in St Kitts and Nevis.
It is being said that Caricom is already facing a crisis of governance and leadership. The regional body should act to prove that it cares about the democratic rights of its citizens rather than appear to be nothing more than a mutual association to protect the interests of its ruling élites. Otherwise, questions will continue to be asked about the worth of Caricom to the people of the region.
