In his quest for a sixth consecutive term in office, Gonsalves may be knocked out on election night, but he is preparing to go down fighting or come out triumphant.
Last Tuesday, Gonsalves continued his mid-term tradition of shuffling and shaking, thus presenting new, fresh, young faces to the voting public. He nominated Benarva Browne as a senator and endowed her with the ministerial post of Urban Development, Seaports, Airports, Energy, Local Government and Grenadines Affairs.
Browne, 33, replaces Senator Julian Francis, a skilled and combative debater and the party’s chief political whip in parliament, who occupied his parliamentary and ministerial posts since the ULP came to power in 2001. Francis, 71, was stricken with a stroke last July and must have told his cousin and political leader that he had had enough.
Significantly though, Browne joins Keisal Peters, Minister of Foreign Affairs, as yet another young ‘jewel’ in Gonsalves’ experimental mantelpiece. Peters has nightmarish dreams of defeating Daniel Cummings in the next elections. Rumour has it that Browne, an Urban Planning professional, is politically ambitious and may be angling to push aside Attorney General Grenville William to tackle Nigel Stevenson for the South Leeward constituency. Whosoever emerges as labour candidates will lose, but the appointments show that Gonsalves’ ability and passion for woeing,
up-and-coming professionals remain unabated. Williams joined the administration in November 2022. Last May, Hospital Administrator Grace Walters was nominated as the ULP candidate for North Windward.
In all of these reshuffling over the years, the party favourite to replace Gonsalves, as reflected in the ‘Caesar! Caesar! Chant’ at the party’s last convention, Agriculture Minister Saboto Caesar continues to receive Gonsalves’ perfect middle finger. Carlos James at Tourism and Culture, Keisal Peters at Foreign Affairs, and Benarva Browne have all been given substantive, high-profile ministries. Caesar continues his banishment at agriculture, whose halcyon days Gonsalves has repeatedly said are in the past.
With the announcement that Francis will take up a position as a special advisor to the prime minister, Gonsalves continues the tradition of offering cushy sinecures as retirement packages to his loyal servants. He tends his flock well. Sir Vincent was a special adviser long into his eighties; Sir Louis Straker is a special advisor, Rene Baptiste is the great helm man at VINLEC; Elvis Charles is at Land and Housing Development Corporation; Debbie Charles is the new Clerk of the House of Assembly.
And the band continues to play ULP’s anthem ‘Feathering the Nest.’ While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with hiring politically connected people to positions of power and authority, these postings must never be done so that some can ‘continue to eat ah food.’
Grace Walters’ nomination as ULP candidate with more than two years before elections are due is a troubling development, a senior public servant, Walters should be a model of professionalism and independence. How does she relate to known opposition activists or politicians who approach her for information and advice at the hospital? She can properly be charged with carrying a partisan agenda even as she holds a significant position in the public health sector. Debbie Charles’ appointment as Clerk of the House of Assembly is equally troubling. The Clerk’s position has historically been a civil service post. For the first time in living memory, it has now taken on a political flavour. Will Charles, a known minion of Gonsalves, bring the traditional and expected civil servant ‘objectivity’ to the post?
Is this how our government should be run?
There is a lot in Gonsalves’ style of leadership to frown on. Over the last 20 years, he has remodelled, some say, dismantled all state institutions, particularly the police force and the civil service. His tentacles dig deeply into Central Water and Sewage Authority (CWSA), BOSVG, Port Authority, Vinlec, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Financial Service Authority (FSA). This pervasive meddling cannot be in the best interest of good administration. Favouritism and party affiliation are the central criteria for advancement in the public sector. Gonsalves may go down in history as the most intrusive, meddlesome and destructive. It may take decades to resurrect a transparent, functioning, efficient and effective state bureaucracy.
Because of the destabilization, dislocation and wreckage, Gonsalves has caused to the state institutions, all of his recent manoeuvrings may come to nought. Increasingly, more citizens see the window dressing as just that: new wine in old, dirty bottles.