By G.A. Dwyer Astaphan
On Sunday, 15th May, 2011, the Denzil Douglas Party, formerly known as the St.Kitts & Nevis Labour Party, will have its Annual Conference.
Great effort will be made to ensure that the event is energized and, at the same time, very tightly ‘managed’.
Even the number of delegates will be ‘managed’, as certain constituencies get to bring 100-plus delegates (the usual quota is less than half of that), perhaps in part to ‘manage’ Timothy Harris by getting him voted out as Party Chairman, and also to ‘manage’ Jeanne Condor by voting her off the Executive.
I am sure that Denzil would love to see the backs of Tim and Jeanne, so that he can ‘put them in their place’, and replace them with his acolytes.
And, of course, if he puts Jeanne in her place, he will be doing the same thing to Jeanne’s husband, Sam Condor, which is something he seems to relish doing.
Denzil loves to ‘manage’ people and to ‘put them in their place’.
The padding of those certain delegations will also be intended to create a feel-good vibe, and to restore confidence and morale among workers in those particular constituencies, given the crash that has taken place over the past fourteen months.
Interestingly, Denzil has also been considering a way at Conference to ‘manage’ me (yes, me) by way of a resolution condemning me and banishing me from the Party. He thinks that I am confusing some Labour supporters and that if he can isolate me, they will be longer confused.
That is extremely rude and disrespectful of him, because, just like persons who support him, those Labour supporters who agree with what I am saying have minds of their own. And they are still Labour supporters. But they do not, and will never again, support Denzil.
And no matter how much he rants and raves, no matter how “turned on”, heated up and enraged he gets, he will never regain their confidence and support. They will consider returning to the fold to rebuild and rekindle the Labour Party only after he has gone!
Meanwhile, they will hold their ground, and more will follow. So once Denzil remains in control, the Party will now get progressively weaker.
Because his actions and his judgment have deteriorated so badly and have caused so much mental, social and economic stress, and his behavior has become so embarrassing and outrageous, that it is clear to all who wish to be objective and honest that he is no longer suitable to lead this country.
And the major source of pressure to remove him as Party Leader will come from outside, not inside, his Party. But Party members will play a key role too.
Denzil is out of touch, angry, erratic, confused, and, of late, maybe obsessed.
Obsessed with, of all persons, me!
He does not even know that this is not at all about me. Even if I am as bad as, or worse than, he and his cronies say I am, it is still not about me. Instead, it is about him, his arrogance, his misguided leadership, and his incredibly bad handling of the fiscal and economic affairs of this Federation.
It is also about this $3 billion debt with which he has saddled us and now all of these taxes and charges that we cannot afford, and about his dictatorial attitude, his undermining ways, his lies, his crassness, his disrespect for the Parliament and for law and order generally, his stubborn refusal to pass Integrity in Public Life legislation, and so on.
But he really is not obsessed with me, you know. His problem is that the heat has become too much for him, and he is doing what his personality forces him to do, which is to refuse responsibility and to try to deflect people’s attention and wrath away from him by looking for a scapegoat.
Three months ago he said that he had “no time to waste with the Astaphans of St. Kitts”. Now he seems to have little or no time for anything else. He is more than off-course!
He has even got some people to spend good time and money on a website and on a regular printed publication in an effort to discredit and attack me.
That time and money could have been spent helping to nourish poor bodies and minds, making our streets safer, our electricity supply more reliable, and so on. But no! Those things are not a priority for him.
So if he thinks that his little tactic will take the heat off him, he is wrong. If he thinks that attacking this messenger will blind the people of this country to the simple and straight message that Denzil Douglas is bad news, then he is ‘ten wrong in one’.
I know that he was deeply hurt and angered on 15th April (the date of Operation Rescue’s Freedom March) when his call to supporters to wear red in Basseterre failed miserably. Not even ten persons took him on.
He was also deeply hurt and angered when his public meetings leading up to Labour Day flopped.
And on the platform at those meetings he frothed at the mouth, and engaged in a cussing and lying spree, and a vicious personal attack on me.
He was smelling a small Labour Day march, and he was doing all he could, in his now worn and passé way, to rouse up people and generate a big crowd.
But when Labour Day came, reality hit him straight between his eyes.
Because minus the majorettes at the front and the jammers at the back, less than 100 persons (the smallest Labour Day march in history) followed the man who only days before had proclaimed that he was “St. Kitts’ only unstoppable force”.
He will never be able to live that down. And his rage has near explosion level ever since.
So come Sunday at Conference, once there are no fireworks in relation to Tim and Jeanne, you can expect to hear that Denzil went on ‘like a dut bike’.
Expect him to say things like:
“I dun tell all you I am de only unstoppable force. You all see, dey have a load o’ mout, but nobody could challenge me. Ah stronger dan dem. Ah smarter dan dem. Ah badder dan dem!”
“So here me now. School call een. Everybody lap dey tail and follow de leader and who don’t like it, dey could go dey wey. Ah running a tight ship from now on, and ah ain’t gon tolerate no insubordination”.
The problem with all of his chest beating and carrying on is that he will be doing it before a shrunken, and still shrinking, base of supporters. It will win him no new support. Indeed, the opposite will happen.
And at the end of it all, the people in the room who will have been inspired and entertained by his harangue, like thousands of other citizens and residents of the nation, will wake up Monday morning out of work, out of homes, out of money, unable to keep up with their bills, living in fear, hungry for peace, hungry for good governance and integrity in public life legislation, and so on. Thanks to him.
And Denzil will have reached the lowest point in his political career, now only steps away from the end.
You know when a sportsman is at the top of his game, he plays in the big leagues. He has a massive following. Then as his stock falls, he goes into smaller markets and performs before smaller and smaller crowds, until his career fizzles out.
That is where Denzil will be on Monday. He may still be Leader, but with a steadily shrinking group of followers. Minor league, and out.
And he knows it. Sunday’s Conference cannot save him.
Indeed, he needs to go by 30th September, 2011.
Before I end, let me inform you that Operation Rescue will hold a public meeting at Wigley Avenue near Tony Berry’s shop on Wednesday, 18th May, and another at Upper Market Street near Jabbo’s shop on Wednesday, 25th May, 2011.
Then we will have our second March through the streets of Basseterre on Friday, 27th May, 2011, from 4:00 p.m. Same start location (West Independence Square) and same route.
We welcome volunteers and contributors. There is much work to be done and there are bills to be paid, as we seek to advertise, to broadcast our meetings, and so on, in our quest to provide a non-partisan forum for the people.
Get ready and come. Stand up for yourselves and for your rights. Do not be afraid. Employers, employees, public sector workers, one and all, these meetings and this march are for you.
The next step after these events may be to close down town.
