Lenard Montoute and Therold Prudent were destined to duke it out for the Gros Islet constituency, since they were boys. What no one could have predicted was that Montoute, a die hard progressive from a Labour background would be representing the United Workers Party and Prudent, a born and bred Flambeau, would be representing a progressive third party.

If Therold Prudent has his way, it will be an epic battle three decades in the making. But after helping to create Montoute’s superstar, superhero brand in the local politics, Prudent is going to have to recreate himself as a superhero in his own right.

It almost ended on his first night out. For that, Prudent can thank Franklin McDonald, co-chair of his new upstart movement.

Therold Prudent and Franklin McDonald were supposed to be the Batman and Robin of St Lucia’s newest political third party, the Lucian People’s Movement. Last Thursday, however, McDonald’s political career as Prudent’s number one political sidekick was cut short by a single verbal blow from talk-show host Rick Wayne, in an award-worthy turn as the greatest comic book villain ever—the Joker.

But Robin or no Robin, Prudent is still determined to take on one of the government’s brightest political lights—the original St Lucian political superhero, Lenard ‘Spider’ Montoute.

It is an unenviable task. Even the St Lucia Labour Party is having a hard time figuring out who to send to challenge Spider. Spider’s star may have been eclipsed, in the past few years, by the likes of Richard Frederick, Rufus Bousquet, Keith Mondesir and Marcus Nicholas but mostly, for all the wrong reasons. And before his star was outshone by the bad boys of Flambeau, he was the political wonder boy of the party, retiring Labour’s first deputy and best future hope for political leader, Mario Michel without even beating him.

Therold Prudent knows a thing or two about Spider and his rise to power that many people may not know. Prudent was, in fact, instrumental in helping bring Spider to the fore in the run-up to the 2001 elections. He is a wonder boy himself and has the documented endorsement of no less than Sir John himself.

According to Prudent, the United Workers Party had asked him to contest the Gros Islet seat for the 2001 elections. The request came in the form of a letter from then party chairman, Stephenson King. At the time, the party was in dire straits, desperate for new faces, winning candidates and any ray of hope that would brighten their interminably dismal future. It wasn’t the first time that Prudent had been asked to run the Gros Islet seat for Flambeau. In 1987 when he was barely out of his teens, John Compton wanted him to take on Labour’s new leader Julian Hunte, but his mother declined, preferring him to go off to study.

But in 2001, Prudent didn’t feel like he was ready to run.

“I told them I love the party but I prefer to help and assist,” he told the STAR, in an exclusive interview, not long after his appearance on TALK.

Around the same time, Lenard ‘Spider’ Montoute was in New York, where Prudent had made his home. Prudent told him the story of King’s request and the two discussed politics in St Lucia.

The upshot of that discussion was the biggest decision Spider had made in his life.

“He said to me, ‘Well, if you don’t want to run, I’m running,’” Prudent told the STAR. “This is the first time I am revealing this story to anyone. He was very angry with the Labour Party.”

Many people who believe what they see on the surface would not understand why Spider Montoute’s anger with Labour would be politically significant. But Prudent, a cousin and self-confessed compere of Montoute, knows how deep the water under the bridge runs.

“Spider was not a UWP,” he said of Gros Islet’s current representative. “He was a Labour and then he was a PLP.” The PLP was George Odlum’s progressive version of the old Labour Party and attracted many of young activists who were tired of Labour’s reactionary leadership ever since John Compton rose to power.

Most PLPees returned to the SLP fold by 1997 when even George Odlum himself was welcomed back into the party with open arms and watchful eyes. Montoute was not yet on the political radar. But by the time Prudent got Stephenson King’s written request to run the Gros Islet seat in 2001, Spider was full of frustration with Labour.

“The fellas didn’t give him leave with pay,” Prudent put it simply. “He was very, very angry with them. I told him ‘You can’t run with vengeance. You can only run because you have a contribution to make.’”

Prudent says that Spider later admitted that what Prudent said was true. There began a partnership to unseat Mario Michel.

There was only one minor problem. Lenard ‘Spider’ Montoute was employed by the government. Once he announced that he was a political candidate he was at risk of losing his job. It is a minor obstacle that could mean the difference between success and failure.

Prudent had a solution. “No one knew that Spider had intentions of running,” Prudent told the STAR. “He would be fired if he openly announced a candidacy. So I decided to use the name Spider. We printed 200 t-shirts with the spider logo on them. Spider made his debut without even appearing at the convention where Morella Joseph was elected political leader.”

Spider Montoute did not win Gros Islet in 2001. But it was a start. And Prudent was there, playing John the Baptist to his Jesus at the pre-2001 political convention and being his go-to guy during the uphill battles of the 2001 campaign.

Prudent, for all intents and purposes, was Spider’s number one sidekick—his Robin, or at least his Alfred. But as all superhero fans know, Spiderman has no sidekicks.

By 2006, Prudent and Montoute had drifted apart. By last year, there were already posters in Gros Islet telling people to vote Therold Prudent. By early this year, Prudent and his cohorts had put together a new political party.

Prudent now says that, for sure, he will contest the next election against his compere and the godfather of his children, Lenard ‘Spider’ Montoute. It remains to be seen whether Prudent can beat Montoute at the game that he, himself, helped to invent. But it is already true that Prudent is the most realistic challenge facing Montoute’s incumbency. It may not be as acrimonious as say, the battle between Richard Frederick and Stanley Felix for Central Castries is expected to be. But it will be more significant as it will be a battle, not just for the biggest seat in the island, but for the heart and soul of the United Workers Party. And the hardest part is choosing. Because while some constituencies choose between the lesser of two evils (say Keith Mondesir vs, Cyprian Lansiquot, Marcus Nicholas vs Tony Torrence, Guy Joseph vs Menissa Rambally), most sensible people agree that this is a battle between two men who are widely considered the right kind of person to be elected to Parliament.