The hazards of getting power on a platter
By Hubert Williams
Guyana Chronicle
March 18, 2007
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados -– Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, 61, has shown herself an experienced soldier on the Jamaica political campaign trail, but she is approaching the sternest challenge of her career in national elections into which she must lead her ruling People’s National Party (PNP) before the end of 2007.
Convention is against her emerging victorious; as are national opinion polls, which in Jamaica are a dependable barometer of the electorate’s mood. Recent history in the region, involving politicians who have come to office much as she has, also is not in her favour.
Mrs. Simpson Miller became Prime Minister on March 30, 2006, following the retirement of Percival James Patterson as he neared the end of almost 14 years in the position and an unprecedented four successive terms in office by the PNP.
In the manner of her preferment by the party to be its new leader – a less than 50% affirmative vote of its eligible electors - and not having come into the position through national choice, it may be said that she was presented with the highest political office in the country on a platter. It is only rarely in the Caribbean that persons who have so come to such office manage to survive the changing fortunes of electoral politics where the polls are conducted in conditions of freedom and fairness.
However, those who have watched her work her way through the ranks of the PNP these past decades, the enthusiasm and vigour with which she executed her ministerial responsibilities, and remember her epic challenge against Mr. Patterson in 1992 for the leadership following Michael Manley’s tenure, will contend that the principle of the platter does not apply to Mrs. Simpson Miller.
Convention
Since the introduction of adult suffrage in the Caribbean more than 60 years ago, long-stayers in power have been few, and on occasion the underlying circumstances very unusual and, sometimes, suspiciously undemocratic.
Two terms in office for a political party were considered to be the very maximum. Exceptions over the last half century have included Belize where the populace was in a 30-year romantic embrace with the quiet Roman Catholic George Price; Trinidad and Tobago, 25 years under the magic of historian Dr. Eric Eustace Williams; and Guyana where dictatorship and rigged elections held sway for 28 years under lawyer Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham.
Also, Sir James Mitchell of St. Vincent and the Grenadines led his New Democratic Party in government four successive terms (1984, 1989, 1994, 1998); Dame Mary Eugenia Charles’ Dominica Freedom Party won three straight terms (1980, 1985, 1990); Errol Walton Barrow’s Democratic Labour Party in Barbados broke the accustomed pattern here with three terms (1961, 1966, 1971); the then opposition Barbados Labour Party is now in its third term (1994, 1999, 2003), and looking confidently towards a fourth; and Jamaica’s PNP created local history with its four wins in a row (1989, 1993, 1997, 2002). The elusive prize to be sought by the courageous Mrs. Simpson Miller is a near impossible fifth.
Caribbean electorates tend to distrust governments and political parties that are too long in office, thinking that they become arrogant, indulge in profligate spending and behave as though the power is theirs to wield at will.
Most leaders who have been long in government (except in ideologically strangled circumstances such as Cuba’s) are sufficiently astute to discern when the political winds of change are blowing in the direction of their parties. They usually demit office and hand to successors the proverbial basket with which to fetch water. Much the same is likely to happen in the case of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his chosen successor Chancellor of the Exchequer Dr. Gordon Brown when Mr. Blair finally chooses to step aside.
Opinion Polls
Recent public opinion samplings of the populace reflect a gap in the percentage of Jamaican men and women who support Mrs. Simpson Miller for the Prime Minister’s position. Currently, she remains the front-runner ahead of the Jamaica Labour Party’s Bruce Golding. However, there seems to have been a steady, though not yet dramatic, erosion in the strength of her national support in the year since she assumed office.
Statistics from several samples taken throughout 2006 by pollster Bill Johnson and published by the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper last November tend to show declining PNP popularity against improvements for the JLP.
The most recent survey was done on October 28 and 29, among 1,008 residents in 84 communities across Jamaica’s 14 parishes.
The Gleaner report said: “The survey, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3%, showed that Mrs. Simpson Miller has lost six percentage points in ratings compared with the 60% she scored in July. Meanwhile, Bruce Golding’s ratings have increased by 4 percentage points, from 31 per cent in July to 35 per cent in October.
“Since the opinion polls in July, the People’s National Party has been racked by the Trafigura Beheer scandal and several candidate selection rows.” (The Trafigura matter involves the acknowledged contribution into PNP coffers of approximately US$31M by a foreign private sector company).
However, overall, on the matter of gender preference, Mrs. Simpson Miller stayed well ahead, garnering 60% of the women respondents and 49% of the men, a much higher percentage than the contentions about male chauvinism in Jamaica would have suggested.
History
St. Kitts-Nevis
With the death of the then premier, Robert Llewellyn Bradshaw, leader of the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party, Shakespearean orator Paul Southwell succeeded to the position of head of government; but was never to test his personal power at the polls, himself dying suddenly in less than a year, to be succeeded by Lee Moore, who 10 months later was humiliated at national elections by Dr.
Kennedy Simmonds of the People’s Action Movement – both Southwell and Moore platter casualties.
Dominica
Following a disastrous five years of the Democratic Labour Party government led by self-appointed ‘Colonel’ Patrick John, and its collapse in a crisis, a committee of national salvation gave power on a platter to Oliver Seraphin in June 1979. Within eight months he was dashed in defeat to the political sidelines by Miss Charles, the West Indian ‘Iron Lady’ who remained Prime Minister for 15 years.
Successor Brian Alleyne, a victim of internal dissension, did not remain long in office, for the party immediately lost the June 12, 1995, elections to the Dominica United Workers’ Party under the leadership of Edison James.
Dominica’s later experience was much like St. Kitts and Nevis’ with sudden death removing incumbents: Rosie Douglas of the Dominica Labour Party negotiated the prime ministership into his own hands in 2000 following inconclusive polls, in the sense that while Edison James’ party lost, there was no clear-cut winner.
I was in Dominica during those exciting elections and watched Rosie electrify crowds on the campaign trail and then manoeuvre his way to what had always been his ultimate objective, even while a militant student at the Sir George Williams University in Canada.
However, his tenure was short-lived as he died suddenly nine months later, to be succeeded by Pierre Charles who also was to die suddenly without facing the polls to test his personal political power.
Following Mr. Charles’ death, Roosevelt Skerrit emerged as party leader; but he was to damn convention, avoided personal pitfalls and win the 2005 elections, giving the Labour Party a clear majority and the mandate to govern without a coalition partner.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
The ever effervescent Sir James ‘Son’ Mitchell had long been a colourful figure in eastern Caribbean politics. He had made a dramatic entry in the early 1970s when as Milton Cato and Ebenezer Joshua stood deadlocked with an identical number of seats, he the lone independent from Bequia island brokered for himself the position of head of government with the one prepared to accept his terms.
Subsequently, in a more strengthened position politically in post-independence St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sir James was to head the government for four terms, a national record there.
When finally Sir James retired from elective politics in October 2000, in an exit that was almost as dramatic as his entry and under extreme pressure from the populace, economist Arnhim Ulric Eustace, a former senior official at the Caribbean Development Bank in Barbados, was propelled into the leadership of the New Democratic Party as the preferred successor and became prime minister.
In five months, he lost at elections to Ralph Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party and again was defeated at the 2005 polls, thereby continuing in the position of leader of the opposition.
St. Lucia
Sir John Compton, father figure and longtime leader of the St. Lucia United Workers Party with three stints as Prime Minister, totalling nearly 30 years, the present one beginning in December 2006, staged a comeback which embarrassed his former hand-picked successor.
In April 1997, he had retired from public office and also as party leader, handing the mantle over to academic Dr. Vaughan Lewis, who at the time was Secretary General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.
In the space of 13 months – May 1997 - Dr. Lewis suffered the ignominy of losing his first national elections 1-16 to the St. Lucia Labour Party under the leadership of lawyer and university lecturer Dr. Kenny Anthony. His course since then – in the UWP, the SLP and a disastrous constituency loss at the December elections - has cast gloom on his future in national politics.
Sir John at 81 had re-emerged from retirement in 2006 and, against all poll predictions, led the UWP to a stunning upset victory over the incumbent Labour Party.
Barbados
John M. G. M. ‘Tom’ Adams had led the Barbados Labour Party in power for nine years when he died suddenly in March 1985, and Sir Harold Bernard St. John succeeded him as Prime Minister.
However, the following year Sir Harold lost his first national elections at the top to a resurgent Errol Barrow, who had led the country from 1961 to 1976. Sir Harold never again became Prime Minister.
Mr. Barrow died suddenly in 1987 and the mantle of leadership moved to Sir Lloyd Erskine Sandiford, who also somewhat broke the cycle of early departure of easy successors.
He served the remaining four years, then led the DLP to victory at elections in 1991, but lost badly to the BLP’s Owen Seymour Arthur when a party revolt precipitated a parliamentary no-confidence vote and forced him into early elections in 1994.
Trinidad and Tobago
Dr. Eric Williams in his time dominated Trinidad and Tobago politics and his People’s National Movement remained in power for 25 years, not always without controversy, for great suspicion had attended the introduction of voting machines and manipulation of the new electoral process.
When he died suddenly in 1981, he was succeeded as Prime Minister by Mr. George Chambers, who adroitly exploited national sympathy by calling early elections, which he won, but then lost very badly at the next elections in 1986.
Guyana
One of the most secure handovers in the region came in Guyana when the dictator Mr. Burnham died in August 1985 while still president. He was succeeded by Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte, who had been vice-president.
Mr. Hoyte easily won elections held within months, largely because of the highly flawed election practices which had helped to maintain Mr. Burnham and his People’s National Congress in power since 1968. Nearing term’s end, the process was manipulated to extend his tenure for two years (1990-1992).
However, with heightening domestic and international pressure, and because of the parlous state into which the Guyanese economy had deteriorated, the government was forced into new processes and tightly internationally supervised elections in 1992, out of which the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic emerged victorious, with Dr. Cheddi Bharrat Jagan as President.
On Dr. Jagan’s death in March 1997, his prime minister of nearly five years, Mr. Samuel Hinds, of the Civic component, became president as compelled under the constitution. However, later that year at presidential elections, victory went to Mrs. Janet Jagan, widow of Dr. Jagan, the candidate presented by the PPP, who re-appointed Mr. Hinds as prime minister.
In the continuing convoluted process, nearly two years later when ill health was compelling her resignation, she replaced Mr. Hinds as prime minister for two days with the then finance minister, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, thus avoiding a constitutional requirement and allowing him to leapfrog over Mr. Hinds, so that when she resigned as president, Mr. Jagdeo was first in line and could then ‘naturally’ succeed to the presidency.
He in turn reappointed Mr. Hinds as prime minister. Mr. Jagdeo is now in his second and - except there is a constitutional change allowing otherwise - final term in office as president, and Mr. Hinds remains prime minister, his third stint in the post.
Jamaica
Jamaica too has not been without its platter successors, death, and short-termers, following leaders of long tenure, the most significant among them being Sir Donald Sangster.
When Sir Alexander Bustamante, flamboyant founder of the Jamaica Labour Party, stepped down as party boss and Prime Minister in February 1967, he was succeeded by Sir Donald, who died suddenly two months later. The mantle was thereafter passed to Mr. Hugh Shearer, who served out the rest of that term, but then lost in 1972 when he first had to face the electorate, against the PNP’s charismatic Michael Manley.
Jamaica has provided the greatest exemplar of increased power emanating from the platter in Percival Patterson who in 1992 took over at mid-term as party leader and prime minister from an ailing Manley and strengthened the PNP for success at three national elections before himself retiring in 2006, thus facilitating the emergence of Mrs. Simpson Miller at the helm.