Two evenings ago, I got a phone call from a lady who asked if I was listening to the broadcast of the Budget Debate from Parliament. I said no.
She suggested that I tune in.
When I did, I heard Denzil Douglas, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, winding up the debate. But he wasn’t saying anything about the Budget. Instead, he was launching a vicious, personal attack on Sam Condor, Timothy Harris and myself, his face twisted with rage.
And apart from his characteristic lying, with his ridiculous stories about those two gentlemen and myself, it mattered not a nick to him that he was in breach of his Parliamentary obligation to refrain from irrelevance, and from personal attacks on other members and citizens and residents of the country.
It mattered even less to him that there is a parliamentary standard of decorum to which he must not only adhere, but on which he, as Prime Minister, must lead by example.
And while he showed his true character by behaving as he did, his acolytes also wrote a new, miserable chapter in their respective autobiographies as they gave sometimes silent, and sometimes murmuring, approval to yet another ‘brat attack’ of obnoxiousness from this angry, insecure little fellow who, on the political platform this the past week, rebranded himself as the “man of steel”, and also added to his ugly legacy by introducing the latest slang: ”breed me, breed me”.
Already we’re hearing “breed me, breed me” on the street. And his vile behavior at the two public meetings has found itself on cell phones and in the social media.
First, “you gee me a Duggie”, and now “breed me, breed me”. Thank you, Denzil Douglas. You have achieved legendary status in the folklore of St. Kitts, albeit in the most repulsive and ignominious way.
Worst among his acolytes was Curtis ‘Wimpy’ Martin, who yet again chose obsequiousness over duty, and impotence over leadership, as he exposed his utter unworthiness for the job as Speaker of the Parliament.
Like the other acolytes, Martin behaves more as if he is beholden to Douglas than he is committed to the people of this nation and democracy.
With no joy at all, I say, therefore, that Parliament of St. Kitts & Nevis, the body established to pass laws and to debate the people’s issues, the highest court in the land, the People’s House, has been turned into a hog pen.
And with that, there’s nothing left for Denzil Douglas to defile and desecrate.
And to add insult to injury, there was a battery of police and military personnel in and around the Parliament and Government Headquarters, and elsewhere in Basseterre, during Tuesday’s proceedings, armed to the teeth, and put at the ready to protect the defiler and desecrater against any possible expression of righteous indignation or other action by the defiled and the desecrated people of this nation.
Here it is, men and women of our Police Force and Defence Force, their salaries paid and their agencies funded by a people defiled and the desecrated, being deployed to perpetuate that defilement and desecration.
Let me be clear. I’m all for the security forces maintaining law and order. But I’m totally against them having their guns at the ready to point at the people in order to buttress an illegal and immoral status quo and an absolute turd for a leader.
After all, this isn’t North Korea. Or is it?
Yet with all of that, I don’t believe that the police and military personnel would’ve shot down the people, because they too are feeling the people’s pain. They too want to see the back of Douglas.
One of the things that angered and hurt Douglas most on Tuesday was the realization that his call, during his two ‘rent-a-crowd’ public meetings last Thursday and Sunday nights, for people to come to Government Headquarters in their red clothes to watch and listen to him had fallen largely on deaf ears.
Lots of money had been spent to transport supporters to both meetings, and to rouse them up for Budget Day. And it didn’t matter to him if they would absent themselves from their jobs for the day, and lose the day’s pay, and maybe other things, including their very jobs, because he wanted them there, not for them, their families and their nation, but for him.
Large TV screens had been ordered to be put up at Government Headquarters on the ground floor and second floor. The screens obviously couldn’t be put up for the workers at Government Headquarters, or for people going there to do business.
The screens were for the multitude of supporters that Douglas had hoped would obey his command, overflowing out of the Parliament Chamber onto the corridors of Government Headquarters, and to serve as a human shield for him in case anybody tried a thing, or if the masses were to storm the place.
And as kith and kin maimed and killed each other in the corridors of Government Headquarters, an effort would’ve been made to sneak Douglas out the back into College Street, down to Bay Road, and up to Springfield Camp.
That is why he wanted his supporters to come to Government Headquarters on Tuesday. To protect him. Nothing to do with them. All about him!
But he couldn’t draw even fifty supporters. And once again, as had happened two years ago when he had called on the masses to march with him on Labour Day to bring down the electricity rate, hardly anybody took him on. So he was embarrassed and angry, now haunted by the reality that his mask of mass deception has been ripped off his face, that he has been stripped naked, and that only a handful of Kittitians are left under his spell.
Of course, that also made him also very nervous. And scared.
But as the day wore on, he felt more confident that the masses wouldn’t converge on Government Headquarters and haul him out, and his venom spiked. So when his turn came to wind up the Debate, he was in a mad, bitter rage. And in his rage, he proceeded to cuss and abuse Sam, Tim and myself, and tell any lie that would come to what is widely believed to be the ‘lyingest’ and most vile tongue in this land.
And while, yet again, he broke every rule of decency and decorum in Parliament, those in there with him, instead of being insulted and outraged on behalf of the people, and on behalf of themselves, turned their backs on the people and on their own dignity, as they sat impotently and shamelessly in solidarity with their lord and savior, Denzil Douglas.
So was that a real Budget Debate? Not really. Not even nearly.
Nevertheless, it was very important. Because, thanks mostly to him, it solidified and galvanized widespread disgust with him and his acolytes. He has disgraced and embarrassed the people of this land once too often. And they’re fully ready to bury him. They know it’s their only hope.
His political coffin is now firmly nailed down, and any effort to reopen it will be met by superior strength, will and determination.
