What on earth is the matter with the leaders of PAM?




They keep tangling up themselves, and making mistakes left, right and centre.

Consider, for example, the Dual Citizenship/Parliamentary Representative issue.

Lindsey Grant changed his mouth on this issue three times within a week. Then right after his third and most recent pronouncement on the matter, up came two other PAM leaders, namely Constance Mitcham and Shawn Richards, who openly opposed him.

And not only did they oppose him, they opposed him publicly and in a dismissive manner. Ouch!

But with good reason, mind you.

Consider Mitcham. She served in Government for about eleven (11) years and she gets a pension (which is hers as of right).

But according to her leader (at the time of flip-flop number 3), she has no right to the salary and allowances which she got during her eleven years of service or to the gratuity and pension, and she now has to return all of it.

Not surprisingly, apart from being offensive to common sense, such a proposition would not sit well with anyone who has served, worse yet Constance Mitcham, and so she said what she had to say on the radio, putting her leader in his place, and making him look like a political midget.

Then, Richards. While he has a seat in Parliament, his leader has none (a very bitter pill for the leader to swallow). He claims that he hadn’t been consulted, that he wouldn’t  have supported Grant on the issue, and that if Grant wants somebody to give up a seat, he (Grant) can give up whatever seat he has. But Richards said that he wouldn’t be giving up his seat in Parliament, or his US citizenship.

He too went public with it, letting people know that Grant must have been speaking only for himself on the matter and that he (Richards) had absolutely no intention of obeying Grant’s directive.

Another slap in the face.  A “woop” from Mitcham and a “wop” from Richards, reddening up Grant’s face with shame.

Imagine, a political leader publicly articulating his party’s position and in a snap not one, but two leading members of his party, one a former, and the other a sitting, parliamentarian, publicly oppose and essentially condemn their leader.

That is very telling, very damning of the leader and his party.

It tells us that the leader is autocratic and impulsive, and that he makes pronouncements and takes positions for the party without discussion and consultation. That’s hellishly dangerous.

It tells us also that there is a disconcerting deficiency in essential and effective communications within the party, even  at a time when it enjoys the relative calm of Opposition, far removed from the weighty travails of incumbency.

And now, all of that has happened, I hear that Grant has been  advised to issue a new statement on the matter to “correct” his earlier pronouncements, in the hope that he and his party might save face and further embarrassment.

If Grant heeds the advice, it would mean that on this Dual Citizenship/Parliamentary Representative issue, he would have flip-flopped four times within a one-month period.

And the first three flip-flops would have been caused by his own arbitrariness and arrogance, with the fourth and final one being his party’s final, desperate attempt to bring him under control, after some six years of what has become a troubling behaviour pattern in Grant.

What does this say about his intelligence, his ability to understand issues, his willingness to consult with and take counsel from his party, his ability to avail himself of sensible and objective advice, his maturity, his leadership skills, and his judgment?

And what does it say about the quality of advice that is actually available to him, and the maturity and judgment of his high-level colleagues, given the fact that he comes up woefully short as a leader?

It is worrying, because if a political party with a support base of as much as  25% of the voting population, and a party  aspiring to lead this nation, can make such a mess of itself on an issue like this one, then  heaven help us all of they were to be in government where, on a daily basis, they would be bombarded with really heavy issues, on which they would have to exercise their judgment and make decisions.

In other words, if Mr. Grant and PAM get an ‘F’ Grade on this issue(which is exactly what they get), then common sense and reason will tell you that they will get worse than an ‘F’ on the other, weightier issues. And that makes them dangerous.

Here is another situation.

Mrs. Jonelle Rawlins-Drew was the PAM candidate in Constituency 6 in the general elections of October 25th,2004.

Her opponent was the Prime Minister, and, predictably, she lost badly.

But by accepting the tall task of facing Dr. Douglas at the polls, she demonstrated a level of guts and commitment which was sadly lacking in most of the persons who pushed and encouraged her.

Having gone through her purgatory in that election, she settled back into her job, got married to a nice gentleman, and had a baby, and so on.

Next thing I’m hearing, high-up PAM  persons are whispering that she will not be the candidate in Constituency 6 for the next elections, and that a  certain ex-police officer will be.

I’m also hearing that this decision was taken without anyone having the decency to speak with the lady.

Now that’s a tangle up, and a mistake.

So what will they do now? Go and tell her that this was just a nasty Dwyer rumour, that it is she who they want to make the sacrifice against the Prime Minister once again, that they really appreciate her and her family, and that everything is sweet and nice?

Or will they continue to do what they’ve been doing and take her for granted?

What kind of leaders, and what kind of  party, treats candidates that way? Where is the decency, the respect and the democracy?

But Jonelle Rawlins-Drew isn’t the only one.

I told Roy Flemming some time ago that there was  a desire to get rid of him and to replace him with a member of the PAM Royal Family.

He didn’t take me on. Indeed, he set his jaw tight and decided to go the whole hog. So he quit his job flying with Carib Aviation.

Well, about a month ago his leader was seen in Central Basseterre on a few occasions campaigning with that same Royal Family member, and there was no Roy Flemming in sight.

Again I have to caution to Roy and others who may still be suffering under the delusion that they are more than mere pawns to the powers that be in PAM. Their shock will come, for sure!

More bad judgment, bad decision-making, more tangling up, and more mistakes.

My final case relates to the presence of Shawn Richards in Nevis on Monday while voters in Nevis 9 were electing someone to replace the late Malcolm Guishard in the Federal Parliament

We know that Richards wants to be Opposition Leader, and being in Nevis on that day, he could  have given the impression that the by-election might be part of his strategy or even desire, to achieve his goal.

That is certainly the way many Nevisians saw it, and that is why he received such a hostile reaction when he found himself near to a polling station in Nevis. A riot could have taken place. A lot of harm could have come to people(including himself) and property. And the by-election could have been compromised.

When asked by the media, he said that he was in Nevis to observe the by-election. Apparently he had never before seen Nevisians vote, and he was curious to see them do so.

I never knew that Nevisians vote differently from anybody else.

I’m told that very few persons believed his explanation, and so he received his walking papers from the people over there.

But here again we see a very disturbing example of poor judgment, this time by the deputy leader of PAM, putting himself in a place and a situation out of which nothing good could come for him or his party, and in the process, threatening the peaceful progress of the by-election, and risking human life as well.

And these are the same Nevisians whose votes Richards had hoped would make him Opposition Leader. The same Nevisians whom he and his party see as their ticket to Government.

What a tangle up, and what a mistake.

PAM supporters deserve better, and the people of St. Kitts & Nevis deserve better.

Until Next Time,

Plenty Peace.