Arise and Prepare for Change

THE EDITOR:
I read with interest a letter written by Earl Lewis in last weekend’s VOICE in which he asked the agitators in the UWP to get together or jump off the boat. I pray to add a little to what Earl has said. The UWP did in fact begin with a constitution. No one bothered to challenge the party’s leader (and founder) or its chairman because the party was achieving great things for Saint Lucia. The island was moving forward economically and socially faster than at any period in its history. General elections and partisan politics were accepted as a five-year conundrum, something which the electorate was called to do for the sake of testing (and marking) the government’s performance.

During my early years in politics the UWP was seen as an elections machine. When the word was given the party sprung into action and performed like a well oiled instrument – a virtual vote harvester.

By way of further explanation, the old system of wealth, academic and property qualifications had given way to adult suffrage. The St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP), which came into existence at the time of adult suffrage, was careful to guard itself from those at the forefront of the old pre-suffrage (qualifications) system. That view still held sway when the young Compton, Mason, and others joined the SLP. Their new language and vision were far ahead of their SLP trade unionists comrades. These plus Henry Giraudy later became the nucleus and main operating system of the UWP.

In the seventies, the entry of Odlum, Josie, Frances Michel and others in the SLP re-energized a comatose party and for the first time gave the language of the common folk a voice and placed the African Diaspora here, in political context. In the process the SLP later attracted qualified elites who were emerging from the grassroots whilst the UWP remained the party of Compton and Giraudy with its growing middle class. After the passing of its founders and its maximum leader and chairman, the UWP seemed lost. Compton made the fatal mistake of bringing Vaughan Lewis too late and not testing his acceptance by the rank and file UWP in a convention against the likes of Lansiquot, Louis and Henry. Later, the mistake was compounded by handing the government to a weakling with the hope of returning and taking it back, as he had done with V. Lewis.

First V. Lewis and later Allen Chastanet have insisted on party rules, discipline and organization. Under Chastanet the UWP has been modernized and it operates today more like a serious democratic organization with a vision, mission and values. Every meeting of the party and its branches must begin by reciting these. The party is poised to achieve its goals and give Saint Lucia a superior government to what exists presently. There are dissidents within the UWP who believe that the old way of secretly canvassing persons with no affiliation to the party or who do not contribute a dime to its cause is the right way. That approached threw the UWP into opposition.

The time has come for the rank and file of the UWP to select the leader to take it to the next general elections; to stop the bickering, and to unite to give the people of Saint Lucia a new, clean and united group of men to run its affairs. The people are fed up of new Labour under Kenny Anthony. There is no reason the unhappy UWP’s should be doing Kenny’s dirty work for him. These people must jump off the boat and if they can tie a millstone around their necks before they do, the better for Saint Lucia. But there is hope even for these. Repentance opens the door to forgiveness and God uses suffering as the fire to purify and strengthen us. Amen!

–Peter Josie.