If the SLP’s 2004 constituency conference in Gros Islet was a hosanna moment to parliamentary representative and education minister Mario Michel, it was also an opportunity for the party faithful to learn from their chosen experts the weak, indiscipline, vacillating tendencies of others at the key Ministry of Finance. The keynote speaker Dr Didacus Jules did not identify the culprit but we all know whom he meant. Besides, it is common knowledge that New Labour, who hi-jacked the SLP from Julian Hunte, did not want the seniors around.

Said Jules: “To bring Pat Joseph, George Odlum and Rick Wayne on the same platform as old Labour stalwarts might have given the semblance of a new social consensus but to what extent did it really represent a unity of purpose beyond the removal of the ancient regime?” And who was responsible for bringing that trio to the platform of New Labour? Certainly not Mr. Michel, whom we are told steadfastly refused to have Rick Wayne on his constituency village platform. People come to politics with their own biographies and both the party leader and the rank and file should do well to remember Dr Jules words. But that was only the beginning of the attack on Kenny Anthony by Didacus Jules.

Dr Jules informed his listeners that every one of these actors would like to write history from their own perspective. Was this a veiled reference to At the Rainbows Edge, a biography of sorts written by Anthony long before his first term at the helm of the party and the government had expired? Many political observers have been aware of Dr Anthony’s burning desire to appear credible, and even as a great leader in the eyes of his Caribbean peers. The Rainbow’s Edge is one such attempt at recreating events to fit somebody’s perception of history, something that Dr Jules has warned us against.

Dr Jules was careful to praise the Labour government for some of its achievements. After all, he was at a Labour party constituency conference. Besides, he served the party for seven years in a very senior government position. He asks: “Notwithstanding this record of accomplishment, can the politics of Labour stand up to the scrutiny of history?” He saves us the agony of thinking for ourselves and supplies his own answer: “I think it (Labour Party) falls very short of the judgment of history.”

The former PS went on to explain that although the government had built schools, a stadium and other facilities, in his view the SLP was “not about projects,” new vision and new directions for a new century.” Dr Jules might have added that the focus on concrete structures, rather than on people was one of the criticisms constantly leveled at the former government by the SLP opposition. Empty slogans apart, Dr Jules left his listeners in no doubt that little if anything has been done by New Labour to introduce the new age and to reposition St. Lucia for globalization, which he claims is already upon us.

Dr Jules pointed out that “effective government is about reshaping how government does business with citizens and other interests. It is about accountability, public sector reform and functional local government.” Students of government and politics are bound to see in that statement the frustration that drove Dr Jules out of the government services. The reference to accountability, transparency and public sector reform must have been particularly traumatic to New Labour, for it attacked the very foundation upon which the party built its case for change in 1997. Dr Jules could have added with equal candor victimization financial impropriety and the abuse of parliamentary procedure to the list of promises that New Labour would fix but to date has not done so. To put it more succinctly, the SLP’s Contract of Faith has been thrown out the window by the persons who had a historical duty implement it. By extension, one must conclude that the demise of the contract of Faith coincides with the exposure of the new masqueraders who hijacked the SLP and used it for purposes other than stated in the Contract of Faith of 1997.

Dr Jules has not finished his analysis of where the party (and country)? stood at this time. He said his failure of transparency, accountability, local government etc is a direct result of the ascendancy of the Ministry of Finance in the affairs of State—an obvious reference to the reckless borrowing, guaranteeing and lying to party and parliament alike when confronted.

You see Rick, our friend Didacus is much more that the sum total of his guts and girth—a fact that reminds us one of Bernard Coard, who ate too often, and too much, when the revolution promised to transform everything except the criminal mind-set of the thugs posing as Marxists, and who came to power with Maurice Bishop and New Jewel Movement!

In Thursday’s STAR: The “anonymous” responder is finally revealed. Also Dr Didacus Jules’ personal reaction to the republication of his 2004 address.