BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – LOCAL political pundit Washington ‘Washie’ Archibald says evident discord within the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party could cause it to lose the next General Elections.
Archibald spoke in exclusivity with SKNVibes and noted that the actions taken by former Minister of National Security G. A. Dwyer Astaphan to “break away” and inform the public of “a lot of things that he was tolerating from the Prime Minister” is a blinding sign of conflict within the ruling Labour Party.
Coupled with that, he explained, “There is now an open secret that there are other parliamentarians within the Douglas Cabinet who are quite unhappy with the way in which he manages the government.”
Archibald, a historian and a professed Labour Party supporter, says history has shown that the people of the island seem to hold fast to the old axiom, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He said the likelihood is that the electorate, having been made aware of the dissonance within the Labour Party, may reject it.
“The voters of 1980, they saw a divided Labour Party facing them and they rejected it. The voters in 1995, they saw a divided PAM party and they rejected it. If the Labour Party goes into the elections divided against themselves, there is a certainty that..., where as the diehard voters might stick to them and be faithful to them, the young voters who are coming up might not vote for them.
“I believe this will have a significant impact on the next General Elections because the young voters who don’t have any dog in any of the races, when they are asked to cast their vote they are going to look at the Labour Party and see division and dissension there. It has happened already, it will happen again.”
Archibald said, as he has done in the past, Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Douglas, the Leader of the Labour Party, is the root of discord therein and as long as he remains there the Labour Party’s success in the next General Elections, as compared to the last, would be portentously diminish.
“This is the reason why those of us who are Labour Party supporters are trying to get Dr. Douglas to remove himself from the Party so the Party can rejuvenate itself before the next Elections and present to the public a united front. But Douglas will have to go. As long as Douglas remains there the public will be seeing a battered Labour Party divided from within, and this will not endear itself to the public.”
During the October 2004 General Elections the Labour Party captured seven of the eight available seats and won all in the previous Elections.
