By Jomo Thomas

‘It’s the Economy Stupid’ is a phrase coined by James Carville in 1992. Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 US presidential campaign. His phrase was directed at the campaign’s workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on. The others were ‘Change vs. more of the same’ and ‘Don’t forget health care.’ Note that this laser focus took Clinton from the governor of the sleepy southern state of Arkansas to the presidential white house in Washington, DC.

The opposition New Democratic Party may benefit from my free advice and adopt a modified version of James Carville’s call for focus. The party’s failure to recognise that it has a candidates’ problem has prevented it from entering the corridors of power. To paraphrase Carville, It’s the Candidates’ stupid ought to become the party’s watchwords.

The ULP has gifted the opposition an entree of political goodies to feast on as the elections draw near. Among the issues are high unemployment and underemployment, depressingly low salaries, high cost of living, a vicious tax regime with 16 percent VAT, a ramshackle civil service and police force, an unprecedented 40 percent poverty rate, a dilapidated road network and an explosive and frightful crime situation with burglaries, violence and murder destroying the social fabric that knits the society together. Hopelessness and helplessness abound while fear and alarm stalks the land.

Even the blind can feel, if not see, that labour, as in the ULP, is not working for the people of SVG. Many persons formerly allied to the governing party increasingly express buyer remorse. As a former ULP supporter recently asked me, ‘ How did we allow the vainglorious, pompous and reckless Ralph Gonsalves to fool us for so long? ‘

The national mood is set for change. The big question is whether the Dr. Friday-led opposition can develop and articulate a developmental narrative that will convince people nationwide that the party is ready to lead and move the country forward after a quarter century in opposition.

The opposition is solid in the six constituencies it holds. It must ask whether it should return to the polls with those six. Underestimating the extent of the devastation, dislocation, disorganisation, disarray, and havoc Gonsalves and his clansmen have caused, it is tempting to think that all that’s needed is for the elections to be called. Wrong! By bitter experience, Vincentians are familiar with the NDP’s bad habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. 

Clearly, then, the issue is more than messaging. A far more critical weakness is the candidates it offers to the electorate. The top three leaders, Dr. Friday, Cummings, and Leacock, are in their twilight political careers and range from 66 to 72 years old. Any serious strategist would offer a younger, educated, and articulate cadre of candidates to fill the vacancies that political common sense or biology are bound to create.

Therefore, no one should be guaranteed the opportunity to run in the upcoming elections except Dr. Friday, Leacock, Cummings, Fitz Bramble, Israel Bruce, and Shevern John. However, the opposition suffers from an outdated political disease that says no winning candidate should be replaced. Patel Mathews, who won by 12 votes in 2015 and lost by one vote in 2020, is a symptom of this illness, which is grounded in the mistaken belief that the candidate is more important than the party machine. 

Terrance Ollivierre has plateaued, and Nature Stephenson wins because of the constituency’s demographics and the strength of the party structure in South Leeward. Both politicians would make less-than-stellar contributions in government, as they do in parliament. That Lavern King remains in electoral exile defies logic.

Three years after the last election, there is no way Kay Bacchus Baptiste and Bernard Wyllie should be caretakers, much more serious contenders as candidates. In a war of attrition, a time in the distant future may come when both might win. Baptiste and Wyllie present a strong head win to the party’s election fortunes. Importantly, SVG is confronted with the fierce urgency of now. 

The same argument holds for Lavern Gibson-Velox in East St George. Some argue that she did well in 2020, so give her another chance. Wrong for the following reasons. Ben Exeter did surprisingly well against Louis Straker in 2015. NDPites fancied his chances in 2020, but he lost by an even wider margin. The same thing will happen if Ms. Gibson Velox runs against Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves again. During the last budget, Camillo said the 2024 budget is an East St George budget. The ULP will do everything to ensure that Camilo retains the seat.

Therefore, the NDP’s strategy must be to decapitate the ULP projected leaders, Camillo Gonsalves and Sobato Caesar. Gibson-Velox’s vote count was a mere 11 votes more than the party’s in 2015. It was Camillo’s votes that fell. Whereas he won by 613 in 2015, he scraped through by 192 in 2020. The ULP is going for a sixth term with the political win against them. All efforts should be made to recruit Akin John, a formidable candidate who is well-liked and has great odds of success. Similarly, young, articulate, forward-looking candidates should be found for the leeward seats.

The NDP leadership needs to take a chapter from Gonsalves’ playbook: No one will be put out to pasture. There is an entire state machinery to staff and run. Under its big tent, there must be a place to care for those who gave way in the interest of the party and the nation.

Once the NDP gets the candidates right, the country’s sad state of affairs presents a political canvas on which the opposition can paint a future of hope, transparency, accountability, and democracy. An overwhelming electoral victory will follow.