Try telling supporters of the incumbent party that most Saint Lucians would prefer to hear from our prime minister news related to his promised better days and chances are you’ll get an Allen Chastanet-related response.
If you’re not especially astute, by which I mean you are not the holder of four BAs, you could come away believing that when the campaigning St Lucia Labour Party bragged about “better days ahead” they were secretly depending on the imminent emergence of the recently elected new leader of the United Workers Party.
Yes, yes, I know that’s absurd. Absurd as the fact that the redshirts fully believed their own fantasy, that the only man on the planet with the immediate remedy to the economic crisis was their own monarch of all he surveys. Why else would they have echoed with such en-rouge gusto what they had to know in their red hearts was embarrassing childish stuff and nonsense?
Why is it that all we hear from the government these days is connected to Allen Chastanet or to his father’s supermarket or his presumed wealth that ought to bar Allen from becoming prime minister of Saint Lucia? (That and his color! Oh, and his inability to tell Creole folk tales!)
In short, why are the incumbents carrying on as if Allen Chastanet is their primary concern, when they should be preoccupied with this threatened nation’s survival?
The prime minister is becoming as scarce as dollars. And more shy than a Dennery hummingbird. One minute he is, advertently or otherwise, snubbing the United States
vice president by deciding to visit Cuba precisely when Joe Biden has chosen to
meet with Caribbean leaders at home, the next he’s off to Ecuador, as if further to spit in Obama’s mixed-race face. Would anyone be surprised to discover Andrew Snowdon bivouacking at Cul de Sac’s most famous residence?
Why is the prime minister these days apparently more concerned about Allen Chastanet than he is about Richard Frederick, Guy Joseph and Stephenson King combined? Why does he talk about Chastanet as if he were sure to be UWP leader next year? After all, who’s to say, depending on his performance in the House from here on, that King could not find himself reelected leader at the next UWP convention and quite likely prime minister a few months later?
And anyway, am I the only one who believes Chastanet’s victory in Marigot had less to do with King per se than with how palsy-walsy with the prime minister King is perceived?
Did Chastanet get elected over King because his party believes he is more inclined to kick ass than caress it with olive branches?
Have we forgotten the reason Richard Frederick won that 2001 by-election in Central Castries had nothing to do with poor La Corbiniere? That Frederick’s victory had everything to do with the
people disliking the prime minister more than they did everything that he said about Frederick? Lacob was the sitting duck AG at the time he got his butt whipped by Frederick, who had campaigned less than a month for the Castries Central seat. Moreover, the word was that nice-boy Lacob was being groomed to be Kenny’s successor. None of that worked, for the reason earlier cited.
The people had quite a number of questions about King that bothered them. But really the questions more concerned Kenny, if you get my drift: Why was King unable to make the case against the prime minister’s association with Grynberg? Why did King
allow himself to be seen as the reason Grynberg sued the government for breach of contract, despite that all the evidence made someone else totally responsible? Why has King been unable even to discover how much it’s costing local taxpayers to retain defense lawyers in the Grynberg matter? When will the parliamentary opposition develop the gonads to ask a few Grynberg questions in the House?
The opposition is even silent (or has been silent so far), on those awful accusations involving Taiwanese funds. The whole world must by now be convinced the King government comprised nothing but crooks. Who will assist this country financially with that Private & Confidential government document out there on the Internet?
But then perhaps the best question is: When will Kenny take the first step toward locking up Ti Chas in connection with the Taiwanese funds fiasco? With Allen locked up and held indefinitely without bail (as are so many others here) it would be back to the safe nice guy King. Hey, I too have been hearing the rumors. There’s even talk that Prez Ma just might be the government’s star witness against Allen
Chastanet—and Tom Chou.
Not that the redshirts are afraid of Allen, you understand! (By the way, notice how easy it is to avoid discussing the young suicides, the thousands of hopeless and unemployed, the disappearing private sector, the hotels in receivership, the way Kenny don’t give a damn blah, blah, blah? Yes, I’ve been checking Jadia’s Facebook account and now I too know how to duck reality!)
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