Poles and Polls Apart

SAINT Lucia General Elections 2016 has quickly come and gone, leaving astounding results — and several nuances. Voters have confounded the rest of the Caribbean – and the world – yet again, with largely unexpected results.

Take the following
1. Just as in the two previous elections in 2006 and 2011, voters returned a third 11-6 verdict in 2016.
2. The opposition United Workers Party (UWP) expected to win, but not by such a wide margin. The ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) though, never expected to lose.
3. It was certain that one of the two major parties (SLP and UWP) would have broken the 8-8 tie in the number of elections each won since Independence in 1979. But no one was sure which one would.
4. It was not expected the two polls cited by the two major parties – by CADRES and Don Anderson, respectively — would have ended-up poles apart. But they did — one predicting the results would have been too close to call, the other predicting the direct reverse of the end result.
5. Similarly, outgoing Prime Minister Dr Kenny D. Anthony was not expected to concede defeat the way he did – and so early. But he too surprised the world and bowed out gracefully, even before the final vote was counted. He had earlier indicated this would have been his last term if re-elected. He then also announced he did not intend to serve as the incoming Leader of the Opposition or to continue as SLP Leader, immediately opening the way for quick SLP leadership succession. He says he will serve only as MP for Vieux Fort South, where he was elected for a fifth consecutive term.

The change is here, so what is the road ahead?

Here are some signposts
1. Like every new government, the new administration will face the same old problems, as voters will still demand all they had expected from the previous government.
2. The new administration will have to adjust quickly to the actual inherited reality before applying its promised new economic medicine.
3. More jobs will still be expected and demanded. (Both party-sponsored polls in fact indicated the Number One priority of all voters is Employment.)
4. There will be anxiety about the future of the Value Added Tax (VAT), which the new administration promised to reduce and eventually eliminate, but has not yet indicated how it will replace the $364 million it earned in 2015.
5. There will also be some anxiety and expectation about continuation of the short term employment and social programs undertaken by the SLP Administration, STEP, NICE, the Home Care helpers, the Free Laptops program, the $500 Bursaries for Parents and Public Assistance programs for the most needy and vulnerable.
6. Voters will also look forward for all contained in the 5-Plus-5 Packages designed by the UWP To Keep Saint Lucians Alive.
7. The political parties will all now definitely have to go back to the drawing board.
8. The new administration will have the usual 100 Days to stamp itself into office — and do what it has said it will do with the likes of the controversial IMPACS Report.
9. The new Government will also be expected to immediately begin to bring the change the majority voted it into office for.
10. Saint Lucians will continue to press for all the electoral and constitutional changes so many called for during the short campaign.

This year the election campaign, though brief, also raised several issues that will have to be addressed by the new administration before the next general elections, including — a fixed election date, length of a term (four or five years), provisions for recall of elected MPs, boundary realignments, electronic voting, as well as related recommendations from the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC).

So then, what happened? Did Labour lose, or did the UWP win? The debate will continue as to what went wrong for Labour and/or where and when what went well for the UWP, or vice versa. But some early conclusions can be drawn.

For starters, the low poll affected both parties, though differently. The overall SLP campaign message, though loud, did not reach far enough. The UWP benefitted from a major support upswing during the latter days of the campaign. The UWP successfully painted the SLP as being ripe for change – and behaving scared. Overnight pre-election unity between divided members of the UWP leadership convinced many that the UWP Leader had found ways to erase all the recent publicly expressed concerns of his critics, including former PM Stephenson King and other top UWP leaders now in his Cabinet. The UWP benefitted greatly from the PR benefits of the CADRES poll. And, of course, there was the (unbelievable but true) effort to link the prime Minister and his wife, and the election date, to everything from Obeah and Voodoo to Occultism and Witchcraft.

But this humbling of the SLP by Saint Lucian voters is not the first time. Indeed, all Labour supporters were shattered by the rejection of the SLP in the 2006 General Elections – when things were also better.

Many Labour supporters pledged thereafter never to allow complacency to get the better of them. But while it is quite clear that complacency might also have played some part in its loss once again, this time around the SLP also failed to build a sufficiently effective party ground machine to overcome a UWP upswing fueled by a propaganda onslaught aimed at satanic demonization of Kenny Anthony.

Yet again, many SLP supporters may have once more forgotten that no election is ever won until the last vote is counted. Dr Anthony indeed had to publicly warn candidates and supporters against premature victory statements and speculating about imagined victory margins. But apparently not all heard. Now, the (expected) Blame Game has started…

In the end, it was reaffirmed, once again for all to see, that Saint Lucians continue to vote in general elections mainly for party — and not according to how they feel about government policies or manifesto promises.

The middle-ground vote in a low poll has again been proven to be the main maker and breaker of governments here. But both parties have historically tended to look over and beyond that small but effective voting segment, each to their own peril.

The island spent all of this week quickly adjusting to the quick change. The new Prime Minister was sworn-in less than 24 hours after the polls closed and the former PM giving his party less than no time set the replacement mechanism in motion.

Now, another new chapter has begun in Saint Lucian politics. However, Saint Lucians still remain poles apart between the two major parties today, as last week. Rank-and-file UWPees want to see their party succeed in government, their equal opponents still wishing them every failure.

Many here had said early enough (including me), that because the SLP Administration had worked in office to win, the UWP could only win the 2016 election if the SLP worked to lose. Now in opposition again, the SLP will have to clinically diagnose and honestly conclude on what really went wrong, in order to make the correct prescriptions for what is to be done — and where to begin.