An Open letter to Tennyson Joseph Allen Chastanet Definitely Not What The Doctor Ordered!

It seems you are accusing the UWP of paying for votes. I am writing to let you know I believe you as much as I believe a climate change paper authored by the Center for Science and Public Policy. (The Center for Science and Public Policy is a branch of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute which was founded by Michael Wallop. “His extensive business career includes management of the Wyoming ranch holdings he owns and establishment of a feedlot. He jointly ventured oil and gas development projects in Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming.” http://www.ff.org/about)

By that I mean to let you know I would like to see your raw data. I understand your need to defend your election prediction that turned out so badly. Neverthless, I still would like to see the raw data.

I would like to know on what you based your aforementioned prediction. I would like to know your sample size. I would like to know how you selected the sample. I would like to know your p values. I would like to know which of your peers reviewed your findings and what changes were made based on peer review. Basically, I would like to see evidence of academic due diligence.

Furthermore, you have been quoted as saying “in Caribbean elections . . . what swings those elections is money.” Please cite a democratic country where this is not the norm. Did you perchance consider the role of the psychology of the slogans used by the parties?

The Better Days Are Coming slogan of the 2011 elections was pure marketing genius. Similarly this time round yo pe and mwen fache were equally powerful. Think back to the 1997 elections. I posit that no amount of UWP money would have mollified the dissatisfied electorate.

I further posit that “the people who can do money better are very often the ones who can in fact win an election” line was this time around most definitely incorrect. I use the case of Dr. Ernest Hilaire. He ran what most agree was something altogether new to Saint Lucia: a well-conceived and pervasive social media blitz never before associated with any local endeavour. For several weeks it was impossible to access the internet without Vote Ernest ads jumping out at you. He accomplished 100% market saturation. You could not visit an app store, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Amazon—or any porn site—without being reminded to Vote Ernest. This in addition to a ground campaign where it seemed every step you made landed on money. The atmosphere itself was money-scented. By your hypothesis, Dr. Joseph, by what the Castries South winner had in his kitty, he should have been way more than just 43 votes ahead of his opponent.

It’s not at all difficult to understand your shock. I, too, was surprised by the margin of the UWP victory. I want to remind you, as head of Sociology and Social Work at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, that your word carries tremendous weight. I want to remind you of the responsibility that comes with the position—a responsibility to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves; a responsibility to be guided by truth and facts, not influenced by funding and cronyism.

I want to also remind you of your responsibility as a son of Saint Lucia – your responsibility to your country and its people. Our country has received several black marks recently. Your suggestion that this election was bought serves further to tarnish our reputation and delegitimize our government. Do your think that this is what our economy needs?

I urge you to consider the impact on the average Saint Lucian. Those of us fighting to make a living while striving to make the land that gave us birth an attractive place to live, visit and invest in need all the support we can get—in particular from prominent and influential brothers such as yourself.

There is so much more I could say on the topic but I think I have already said enough to convince you to rethink your position. Or at least to consider that there was more at play here on Monday than who spent the most money. I will leave it to others to determine who threw around the largest sums and where those dollars originated all of a sudden.

A final question: Dr. Tennyson Joseph, on 6/6/16 did you vote?