Can Pierre Pull Off What Corbyn, Douglas, Mottley Could Not?

The Constitution of Saint Lucia, at Section 60, states as follows: “There shall be a Prime Minister of Saint Lucia who shall be appointed by the Governor General.” Also that “whenever the Governor General has occasion to appoint a Prime Minister, he or she shall appoint a member of the House who appears to him or her likely to command the support of the majority of the members of the House.” (Curious, those iffy words—“likely to . . .” in relation to a matter of such importance.)

Subsection 6 of the earlier cited Section states: “The Governor General shall remove the Prime Minister from office if a resolution of no confidence in the Government is passed by the House and the Prime Minister does not within three days either resign from his or her office or advise the Governor General to dissolve parliament.” (The Governor General shall . . . nothing iffy here!)

Moreover: “If at any time between the holding of a general election of members of the House and the first meeting of the House thereafter the Governor General considers that in consequence of changes in the membership of the House resulting from that election the Prime Minister will not be able to command the support of the majority of the members of the House, the Governor General may remove the Prime Minister from office.” (Yes, we’re back to iffy may, but never mind.) 

From the steps of the House on the morning of 20 November 2018, the leader of the parliamentary opposition, Mr. Philip J. Pierre, read out for the benefit of media reporters what he referred to as “a motion of no-confidence in the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.” 

He complained that some people including members of government had attempted to “discredit this historical action by suggesting it will not prevail.” (What historical action? Something that is historical is simply something that happened in the past, regardless of its significance. To borrow from William Saffire: “Any past event is historical, but only the most memorable ones are historic.” In short there’s a world of difference between the words historical and historic.) Besides, perhaps Pierre’s “some people” were simply better informed about his proposed initiative than was its author!

On the remembered occasion outside the House, Pierre appealed to parliamentarians on the government side “to place country above self and support the motion of no-confidence in the leadership of Allen Chastanet and that he resigns immediately as Prime Minister of Saint Lucia.” (Standing with Pierre as he delivered his sermon were his fellow opposition parliamentarians, save for the member for Vieux Fort South who was conspicuously missing in action. By the way, never mind what Monroe’s Robert Lewis might say, will the SLP ever learn the ordinary meaning of the word “immediately?”)

Pierre’s reportedly retooled motion is scheduled for debate in parliament this coming Tuesday. The usual mindless memes have been circulating for weeks now. But given the earlier cited provisions of the Constitution at Section 60, which speaks only to “no confidence in the government,” not individual MPs, will Pierre’s motion, to borrow from Nancy Pelosi, prove “a nonstarter?” 

On Wednesday, Pierre reminded reporters at a press briefing that his no-confidence motion was not without precedent, that in Barbados “then opposition leader and current prime minister Mia Mottley presented a motion of no confidence in parliament.” Did his proffered memory jogger contain a hidden message? Where else but in parliament are no-confidence motions normally presented? Perhaps Pierre saw need to establish he was not reinventing the wheel, that other House opposition leaders before him had presented no-confidence motions in parliament. Or maybe he sensed something lacking in the media representatives at Wednesday’s press briefing. 

So far as is generally known there have been no challenges to Pierre’s locus standi in the matter. What at this time remains in question is whether the Saint Lucia Constitution permits no-confidence motions against individual MPs, including prime ministers. Indisputably, Mia Mottley had presented an ultimately unsuccessful motion in her country’s parliament. But unlike the case at hand, hers was not against her island’s prime minister.  

The Honourable Miss M.A. Mottley’s Private Member Resolution of 3 May, 2016 opens with the following words: “Whereas the Government of Barbados . . .” and closes with “Be it resolved that this Honourable House has no confidence in the Government of Barbados to properly and effectively manage the affairs of state . . .” 

Is it mere coincidence that Pierre’s motion takes aim only at the SLP’s second favorite target? It opens this way: “Resolution for a vote of No Confidence in the Honourable Allen M. Chastanet, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Economic Growth and Job Creation and External Affairs.” 

It closes with: “Be it resolved that this Honourable House expresses its total lack of confidence in the leadership of the Hon. Allen M. Chastanet and be it further resolved that this Honourable House call for the immediate resignation of the Honourable Allen M. Chastanet as Prime Minister of Saint Lucia.”

In between the introductory and final whereas-es are twenty-something paragraphed allegations, with nary a mention of the word “government.” Only the prime minister is referenced throughout Pierre’s motion that could easily pass as a cut-and-paste version of an ebullient document presented at the National Assembly of St. Christopher and Nevis by opposition leader Denzel Douglas on 24 December 2018. It introduces itself as “a vote of no confidence in the government” but ends with the prayer “that this Honourable House no longer has any confidence in the Prime Minister and calls for the immediate resignation of the Honourable Dr. Timothy Harris as Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis.”    

Two weeks ago the host of a call-in TV show brought back remembrances of times not long past as he entreated MPs on the government side to betray their leader and support Pierre’s motion—a Judas move calculated to deliver on a public promise of “a new prime minister by Christmas,” if nothing else. Over and over the impassioned TV host implored government MPs to show Chastanet the door. “You won’t be changing the government if you support the motion,” he explained. 

“Your party will continue to form the government. Put country before self or history will not be kind to you.” As if they had never heard of Neville Cenac and George Odlum, Sarah Flood-Beaubrun too, all of whom had been guided by their consciences out of the Labour Party and suffered the killing kindnesses of roadside SLP historians especially adept at spewing convenient pawol bo lawi.   The TV host was himself no political novice. He had sampled the sweets and the sours of local politics, enough to render saints bitter. Never mind his explosive exhalations, he had to have known deep in his pumping heart how futile were his televised siren calls. There was, after all, the matter of complicity. Why demand only the prime minister’s head when it was common knowledge even among the Facebook intelligentsia that government decisions are recorded as Cabinet Conclusions? In any event, whatever happened to the principle of collective responsibility?

As for the battle-weary Pierre, is he hoping his “historical” motion will deliver what five years of acrimonious and vicious campaigning could not on June 6, 2016? Does Pierre actually expect sitting government ministers to turn on their leader with Brutus daggers? Is the unspoken message of Pierre’s motion a bashful acknowledgement of newly discovered confidence in the leadership qualities of “no university degrees” Stephenson King, himself a palace coup survivor? Does Pierre share his party’s assessment of the former prime minister’s intelligence, to the extent he can actually imagine King gobbling up fulsome praise from SLP mouthpieces? Did the 2016 elections teach Pierre nothing about King’s limitless devotion to his party?

If my interpretation proves on point, it would mean Pierre’s motion ignored Section 60, aided and abetted by the House Speaker Andy Daniel. As I understand the particular Section, and regardless of what subservient House Standing Orders might say to the contrary, the Speaker would be abusing his authority if he should entertain on Tuesday the Pierre motion as presently composed. 

In an article that appeared recently in Barbados Today, the UWI political science lecturer Cynthia Barrow Giles writes, presumably with tongue buried deep in her cheek: “From time to time the no-confidence motion crops up, providing an opportunity for the parliamentary opposition to criticize governmental action without the slightest chance of success.” 

Is that all no-confidence motions are about? Doesn’t every sitting of parliament provide opportunities to be less than honorable? In all events,  no-confidence motions also allow the government side to strike back. Count on it, regardless of how things go down on Tuesday, there will be the predictable theatrics we’ve all come to expect whenever a particular party is in opposition. I, for one, can hardly wait for the show, if only to determine who is most deserving of my award for the best impersonation of the 1979-82 radical Brother George!