Thursday’s Watershed Parliament

Tomorrow’s parliament will probably be Dominica’s most important ever. Whatever the outcome, this sitting of the House of Assembly will be a major divide in our political history.

For the one thing, we will know whether the United Workers Party (UWP) is all hype and no substance.

Ron Green and his colleagues have talked a pretty good game so far but here’s where the tire hits the road. This is their acid test; will the UWP maintain its boycott or capitulate?

In Many respects it’s too late for the UWP; the horse has already left the barn. To return to parliament at this eleventh hour would be tantamount to political suicide, not just for Edison James and Norris Prevost who are having their last hurrah but for the party. The party would lose face; they would become fodder for the talk shows. UWP’s return to parliament, regardless of whatever spin its handlers put on it, would convince even the most ardent supporters that the party’s strident remonstrations over the last six months was pure and simple a case of sour grapes By this one act, the Opposition would legitimize the Roosevelt Skerrit administration and at the same time expose itself as a party devoid of principles that simply cannot be trusted. Obviously, this would explode the party’s support base and alienate large tracts of voters making it virtually impossible to pose any serious challenge to the Dominica Labour Party (DLP). This would for all intents and purposes spell the death of the party.

If however the UWP stays its course it will not only surrender its seats in the parliament, but its right to contest for the same in by-elections. According to the constitution, by-elections will have to be called within three months of the members vacating their seats. However, given the fact that the developments that prompted the boycott and protests in the first place would not have been resolved, it’s highly unlikely that the Opposition would participate in by-elections. No doubt, this decision will come at a tremendous cost to the UWP but this is one of the times when losing might mean wining.

First, the party would have moved one giant step closer to enlisting the help of the international community in its fight for electoral reform in Dominica. The idea of a one-party-state in Dominica may not sit too well with the US. Consequently, Green and the UWP would be hoping that the US government and others will exert pressure on Skerrit to radically reform the political system or face possible blacklisting. Skerrit more than likely has already begun to feel the pressure. While he poked fun at the UWP during Caricom’s 21st intercessional meeting of Heads at Fort Young Hotel, he was very caustic during his report on the government’s performance during its first 100 days in office, charging the Opposition of deliberately seeking to tarnish Dominica’s good name as a progressive democracy.

Secondly, the party could gain tremendous political capital that it could use to rebuild and re-fire its support base. The UWP is more likely to come out of Thursday as more trustworthy than the DLP. In fact, Dominicans would now be extremely leery of the government’s unlimited power. Most people including laborites do not wish to see a one-party-state established in Dominica. Consequently, as an initial response, disenchanted supporters that either abstained or voted Labour in December 2009 as well as large numbers of independents more than likely will gravitate back towards the UWP camp. That would make it a lot easier for the party to push for electoral reform and position itself to offer an effective challenge to the DLP. One can therefore expect The People’s Parliament to take on an even larger role in this interim political period.

Interestingly, while openly sympathetic to the Opposition’s boycott of parliament and calling for electoral reform herself, Judith Pestaina, the Leader of the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) has not ruled out the possibility of participating in by-elections. Nevertheless it is near impossible for the DFP to win in Roseau Central, Marigot or Salisbury if at all they decide to contest for the seats. The humiliation of two deposit-losing defeats in as many elections may derail the freedom train and so the party may very well chose to abstain from by elections.

Of course the Labour Party does not need the three seats. There is no conceivable good that can accrue to the party from cornering the parliament. It already has a 2/3 majority in the house and can virtually do whatever it wants. But there is nothing Skerrit can do about tomorrow; we are heading straight for a constitutional crisis. As long as the UWP Opposition members do not show up for tomorrow’s parliament, there will be by-elections and Dominica will make history by becoming the first one-party-state in the Caribbean. Skerrit however will have massive public relations nightmare on his hands and he and his publicists, strategists, handlers and spin doctors will have to work double shift to try and shake the image of Dominica becoming a pariah and despotic state.