Pity the Poor ALP - Part II

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Colin Sampson

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 02:30

By Colin Sampson

A blogger who goes by the lengthy nom-de-post of brutusmaximuswayne, after reading the preceding article on this topic (Caribarena, January 15), posed the poignant question: “… y’all trying to tell me the UPP is the PROBLEM??? WHAT THE HELL???”

The post helpfully goes on to absolve yours truly of complicity in such an assault on approved blue political principles.

With an abundance of caution, I needs must volunteer to act as bearer of bad news to the clearly very sincere blogger - and to many other equally confused adherents of the blue political party. My caution springs from a keen appreciation of our predictable partisan tendency to shoot the hapless messenger before the mission is completed. This is done, quickly and efficiently, to ensure that the message is neither received nor understood.

The matter may be stated in this simple form: If the Antigua Labour Party, with all its manifest faults and failings, continues to be a credible, formidable, and feared threat to the United Progressive Party’s hold on power – then the United Progressive Party is the problem.

To attempt an analysis of the political situation in Antigua & Barbuda, and to do so starting from any other premise, is to fall instantly into error. The error, however, is one that is regularly indulged in by devotees of either political colour.

It is a peculiar but proven fact of human psychology that membership in any group has the automatic effect of completely skewing the perspective of group members in favour of the interests of the group.

This mental tunnel vision is the root of family loyalty, clan feuds, tribal war, and Nazism and it lives in all of us. Our success or failure as a society actually depends on our ability to balance the often conflicting demands of personal (and factional) interests against those of the wider social environment.

The fatal pathology that afflicts our fair islands is evidenced by the total commitment of both of the establishment political parties to their own similar view of the world. Both factions have a single mythology. According to that shared mythology, their own political colour is the sole vessel holding the future of Antigua & Barbuda. Their leader is the greatest there ever was or ever could be, and must rule forever, unchallenged and immortal.

Everything that is good in the nation flows from the bountiful and unquestionable goodness of elected idols as long as those idols subscribe to our particular political colour. All that is bad flows from the evil machinations of those who adhere to any other political colour.


Any person who hopes to support either of the dominant political colourations must possess the ability to believe, with truly child-like faith, in whatever propaganda their own political colour chooses to put out. Therein lies the death of reason and maturity in benighted Antigua & Barbuda. The future of the United Progressive Party was blighted from the moment its leadership and their trusting followers began to revel in that cardinal sin of politics: believing your own propaganda.

In the run-up to the 2004 general elections, then prime minister Lester Bird espoused the curious reasoning that his government, having done seven out of 10 things well, had achieved a 70 percent positive rating, and was therefore entitled to a further term in office.

As was shown by the red political party’s subsequent defeat, this rationale was clearly off track not least because voters did not necessarily ascribe the same weight to Lester Bird’s 10 selected factors. Additionally, the three areas of failure might well have been more than sufficient to outweigh any benefits accruing from the seven points of success.

Incumbent governments particularly basically well-meaning new governments like the UPP – tend to focus excessively on governance, forgetting that it is politics that wins or loses elections. Only the most rabidly blue-blinded UPP supporter can deny that the Antigua Labour Party survives as a viable alternative to the crusaders who pledged to bring a new day to an abused country.

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If the red political party is able to stand up, and, far from being consigned to the dustbin of history, be generally acknowledged as a government-in-waiting, it is because the blue political party has failed in its mission to re-create Antigua & Barbuda as a healthy environment for clean politics.

All the noisy bluster, all the empty threats of retribution, all the limping investigations, all the fun-filled campaign kangaroo courts crumble to ash in the face of the blue party’s manifest failure to live up to its own squeaky-clean billing. The disillusioned public stopped counting the strikes long ago.

So should anyone … really … pity the poor ALP?

See related story

Pity the Poor ALP

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