Some have even acted out of turn, regardless of the fact that they know how things ought to be done.
Take for example the Petitioner, the Hon Mark Brantley. Immediately after the court ruling, he called for the immediate resignation of the Supervisor of Elections, and the Registration Officer for his district.
And even though he knew that the Constitution calls for a by-election — if that is the route that would be taken — to be held within ninety days, he ferociously called for elections to be held within 30 days.
He attempted to bend the Constitution by calling for lesser days. That was fine, but the question many asked, even those in his own CCM party, was: How do you hold elections when the supervisor of elections and the registration officer would have resigned?
Filling those two positions is not like filling the positions of a gardener and a maid in one’s home, not unless he knew persons that would have been waiting to take up those positions. Even in those positions, I have seen people place adverts in newspapers.
So, filling those positions is not like replacing the air one has breathed out from their lungs.
But since the Premier of Nevis, the Hon Joseph Parry, gave notice that Nevisians will be going through a full local election, I have seen activities in and out of the political arena shift to higher gears. We have more persons interpreting the Constitution in a manner that would suggest that St. Kitts and Nevis has two constitutions.
I will look into that aspect (two constitutions) next week, but let me deal with the real reason on the ground why persons are afraid of a full local election, which is allowed by the present Constitution.
In St. Paul’s the CCM has been caught with its pants down, so the experts are saying. But I am saying to them that the CCM has no pants in St. Paul’s and so Premier Parry’s announcement could not have caught them at a worse time.
The CCM has no candidate for St. Paul’s following the resignation of Mr A. Michael Perkins, a one-term politician who was disrobed by the Hon Robelto Hector in 2006 and repeated it with an even more severe thrashing in 2011.
The CCM has said that they have a candidate for St. Paul’s but have yet to name that candidate, because they do not have one. A few names have been bandied about, and a close credible one could be one CCM operative who talked on a CCM platform in Brick Kiln recently.
In St. John’s Mark Brantley will be dogged by the six persons he recently attempted to criminalise. Even though he has withdrawn one, he can expect a rebuttal from more than five because they say that the Bible teaches them that there is a time for everything under the sun: A time to be sued and a time to sue.
Or as a popular Nevisian inspirer preaches on most morning, Tommy has decided he cannot walk away from trouble; he has had enough and is not a Coward of the County…Gatling boys take what comes your way?
Brantley will be dogged by agitations of the youth in St. John’s in their quest for quality jobs. This is so because NRP brings jobs to St. John’s and he opposes them. He opposed the Brown Hill Communications. Now he is opposing the oil storage facility — all of them in St. John’s.
He will be dogged by the 203 names he has been attempting to put back on the voters’ list. Two done dead and a good chunk are no longer in the country because they were not even supposed to be in the country. A good chunk told the court that they did not live in St. John’s and some have since transferred their names to the constituencies they rightly reside.
The remaining few he attempts to put back will be legally objected to immediately as they do not reside in St. John’s. Finally, Mark Brantley will be dogged by the dog issue he put on the table for Nevisians. I said enough about that issue last week. Mr Hensley Daniel will romp home with more than the 14 votes he led with in 2011.
In St. George’s the CCM leader will be deceiving himself to think that he still has an iron grip on the constituency. Over the years people accused him of doing nothing but they still voted him back. It is the NRP that gave people lands in Hardtimes and Forthergills, but they do not see that as a shortcoming in their leader.
However, credible information is doing the rounds that Vance Amory is in big trouble come the next election whenever that will be. I asked a good friend from Rawlins (Amory’s home village) if they had finally seen his inability to deliver development and his quick answer was: “No.”
I was not surprised when I heard what is going to hurt the CCM leader at the polls. My friend said: “Vance (they do not even address him as Amory) is failing us big time by allowing that boy from Hanley’s Road to take over the party. If he cannot control that boy, we will control him (Amory) and we have our chance at the polls.”
Your guess is as good as mine as to who this ‘boy from Hanley’s Road’ is. All I can say is that Nurse Patsy Hanley is no push over either. She already has done her homework with effective house to house campaigns and is ready to bring down goliath.
Even though the CCM holds the St. James seat, it is long gone. They have dropped that catch. The man they sent to the House of Assembly, Hon Alexis Jeffers, has admitted that the only success he has had was to write two letters to the Nevis Housing and Lands Development Corporation.
Pressed as to why he does not attend parliament, he said that he was not aware that they played music in the assembly and therefore did not have any instruments.
People have accused him of doing nothing, but I credit him for some success, but unfortunately not where it matters. He succeeded in assembling some demonstrators at Bath Hotel, while his seniors at the CCM party could not have made it.
On the evening of Wednesday September 26 he hosted the ‘On the Mark’ show on VON radio where he said that people power brought down the likes of “Hosni Mubarak over there in Egypt, people were the ones who brought down Saddam Hussein over there in Iraq, people were the ones who brought down Muammar Kaddafi down there in Libya.”
He said to Nevisians: “We are the ones who would have to decide, and when you see these things happening, do not look to your political leader, do not look for someone else, look to yourself and ask yourself what can you do for your country…. you pick up the cause and move forward, people are going to join you. And once you are joined by one, two, three, it will be a whole multitude in no time.”
Yes, now you know that the following day a bunch of people wearing blue, who were not more than 12 at any time had assembled outside the Bath Hotel. When it came to eating someone brought them watermelons which they ate with gluttony, but that ended as it started.
I asked what happened that they are not getting the melons and I was informed that their leaders where mortally afraid when they realised that the watermelon has two colours that make them jump out of their political skins: Green and red.
If you think I am peddling nonsense then fetch a copy of the Observer newspaper of Friday September 28, and you will see one of them, wearing blue, munching off a melon almost as big as her head. I am yet to see a blue watermelon.
They have however run out of steam and you will sometimes only find one or two, and sometimes none. I occasionally talk to them and while there I have observed that there is a register where they tick off their names.
I do not know what that register is for, but one thing I will advise them is that when they call off the standoff that they take it to a doctor who will help to determine how much they have exposed their fragile skins to the ultraviolet rays of the sun. They risk contracting skin cancer.
If they think they are out there to perform ‘Waltzing Matilda’, someone please advise them that their voices are hoarse and that this is Nevis, not down-under. They should also realise that they are exposing themselves to any dogs on the loose that could maul them. Dogs on the loose do not attack persons in offices.
Mr Alexis Jeffers has succeeded where all the other CCM people have failed. However, people in St. James’ did not send him to parliament to call standoffs that have nothing to do with their area, and that is why the Hon Patrice Nisbett will have his day at the polls.
Patrice Nisbett has effected real development in St. James’ including paving and upgrading to all-weather the road passing outside the home of the former CCM representative, Mrs Jean Harris, who was a government minister between 1997 and 2006 but never did anything about it.
I was going to say nothing about St. Thomas’ as it would be foolhardy for me to imagine that the calypsonian who made an attempt for the seat in 2011, and was whitewashed by Premier the Hon Joseph Parry, has any gumption to put his name back on the ballot.
But I will mention something that was on VON radio on Tuesday morning October 30, where presenter of the ‘Morning Inspiration’ show, Mr Evered ‘Webbo’ Herbert, advised, and I fully agreed with him, that “when your neighbour’s house is on fire, wet yours.”
He however knocked breath out of me when he said that in China two men were jailed for writing a song criticising the government… well, Mr Keith ‘King Dis N’ Dat’ Scarborough is known to have written and performed songs that were anti-government. I am at a loss as to the message of inspiration Webbo was sharing this time.
Back to the elections that some of us are afraid to face. My take is NRP 5: CCM 0.