I read, watched and listened to published comments on and reactions to outgoing former Prime Minister and Vieux Fort South MP Dr Kenny D. Anthony’s long-awaited announcement of his retirement from elective politics and – depending on who’s talking – most are as Red and Yellow as the ruling Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) and the opposition United Workers Party (UWP).
I’d swear they weren’t responding to what ‘The Doc’ actually said about: Why this is ‘a defining moment’ in his life and age, why he feels ‘politics has changed’, why he believes his constituents ‘deserve better’ than he’ll be able to serve after five consecutive terms, why he sees ‘no logic’ in the claim that MPs must be born in the constituencies they represent, why having four candidates vying to replace him is ‘healthy for democracy’, why he prefers a ‘run-off’ mechanism versus selection of a candidate by a committee, why he’d make ‘no personal endorsements’ but will always ‘reserve and defend’ his right to speak on constituency, party and national issues, or why he insists that ‘not all politicians are the same’.
Nor did they seem to have heard his unveiling of revelations of sacred personal and political ‘Articles of Faith’, assurances that he’ll never abandon the constituency between now and the next general elections, how held like to be remembered – and why constituents should not change how they feel about him when he’s no longer their MP.
Instead, they spoke and wrote largely about what they had wished to hear but didn’t, speculating on why he did some things and not others, imagining he might have other motives for going than explained, discussing his leadership legacy, questioning why he wants anything named after him – even about who’ll deliver his eulogy…
At 75, The Doc has been a MP for 28 years, was re-elected five consecutive times, served three separate five-year terms as Prime minister, 15 years as Minister for Finance and Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and 18 years as SLP Leader – before taking his ‘principled’ decision to stand-down from ‘elective politics’.
He did the same – even though with more-dramatic immediacy – when he publicly resigned as Party Leader as soon as the results on Election Night in 2016 showed he’d led the party into its second electoral defeat since 2006.
I heard and saw The Doc online that day and in shared videos since then, but what I always looked at was the evidence before my very eyes of how devastating taxing the ‘elective politics’ we practice in these parts can be to the human body.
The Doc could not have been expected to have remained as strikingly handsome as he used to be as a young President of the St. Lucia Teachers Union (SLTU) in 1978.
Too young to be appointed a Senator and Cabinet Minister, the young radical trade unionist was instead appointed the new government’s ‘Advisor on Education and Culture’ after the Labour Party won the 1979 General Elections.
Frustrated by the catastrophic ‘leadership struggle’ that tore the government apart within a year, Anthony would resign and pursue academic and legal studies abroad.
Before all of that, Kenny and a long list of young progressives had, from 1975, formed the Workers Revolutionary Movement (WRM), a small but effective anti-imperialist political entity that punched way-above its size and weight in the island’s pre-and-post independence politics.
The WRM earned the wrath of the SLP for declaring (in 1978) its ‘principled support for Independence for Saint Lucia’, irrespective of under which political party or leader, since ‘Independence is a necessary step for national liberation.’
Dr Anthony and I were both working in Guyana when he was invited in 1995 to lead the SLP into the 1997 General Elections and I pledged my support for his acceptance, promising to join him during the campaign – and after the anticipated victory.
Unfortunately, Guyana’s President Dr Cheddi Jagan (whose administration I served through leadership positions in the party and state media) died in 1996.
Circumstances demanded that I remain in Guyana until 1999, after Mrs Janet Jagan succeeded her husband as Leader of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and President of Guyana, she also being the PPP’s longest-serving parliamentarian and the longest-serving members of the National Assembly.
I served as Prime Minister Anthony’s Press Secretary from late 1999 to 2006 and opted to serve the Labour administration from outside, between 2011 and 2016 (Dr Anthony’s third term).
So, the Kenny I saw and heard this past week wasn’t the one I grew-up with as an elder brother and comrade.
Instead, it was a shell of his former self, his diminished frame visible in ways that reaffirmed the correctness of my personal decision – very early in life – not to engage in elective politics.
Yet, even so, his was a masterful presentation that again defined the visionary in the man who shares the longest record as a consistently re-elected parliamentarian with none other than his successor and former ever-loyal Deputy Political Leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre.
The Doc’s prime -ministerial legacy is still to be researched and documented for sharing with Saint Lucia and the world – and as I often remind his critics from within and without, if he hadn’t resigned that night, his successor would not have succeeded him as fast.
Dr Anthony’s legacy in office will continue to differ drastically from that of his successor, but no one can take from him the fact that The Doc served Saint Lucia well and the three administrations he led left indelible marks on country and people.
His representation as a MP and his continuing role as the island’s first parliamentary backbencher are still works in progress.
But be that as it may, he has left an indelible record of achievements that will always stand on their own – and this is certainly not Dr Anthony’ last stand.
His story simply continues…