Tit for tat-the Politics of Corruption

What goes around comes around.  Today’s acerbic contest between the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) and the United Workers Party (UWP) for the government is nothing new.

Ron Green and the UWP campaign strategists are hoping to convince voters or at least create the perception that Roosevelt Skerrit and the DLP are totally corrupt and therefore must be removed from office at any cost.

“At any costs” includes now as it did back in 2000 an uneasy truce with the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP).   It also includes the behind the scenes machinations of Senior counsel Anthony Astaphan and investigative journalist Lennox Linton.

While the opposition has liberally criticized successive Labour administrations since Roosevelt Douglas for their ineptitude and incompetence, the UWP, in the lead-up to the December 18^th polls, is yet to challenge Skerrit’s management of the economy.  Frankly, this government’s fiscal policies and economic programmes have yielded far better results than the five years of UWP’s ‘Toopartooism.’  Even Norris Prevost, the UWP MP for Roseau and former Minister of Tourism, seem to concur.  Consequently, the opposition is finding it hard to discredit and discount the DLP’s housing revolution and impressive capital investment projects (although the DFP would argue more than 90% of these projects are incomplete).  But this election is not about economics or performance. This is a rehash of the 2000 campaign, only this time, the shoe is on the other foot.

In 2000, the DLP accused the UWP of gross mismanagement of the public’s purse and corruption.  Dame Eugenia Charles mortgaged DFP’s future to the DLP and its campaign against UWP’s alleged corruption in the hope that if the party struck gold at the polls, Freedom would be guaranteed seat (or seats) at its table.   Julius Timothy, Finance Minster at the time, was caricatured/ framed as the ‘architect’ of UWP’s corruption.   Senior Counsel promised to prosecute and jail those who were found guilty of the alleged corruption.  Nine years and three Prime Ministers later, Astaphan has not been able to furnish one single shred of evidence to substantiate UWP’s alleged corruption.  But even more incredible is the fact that even after the DLP demonized and dragged Timothy through the mire and dirt, he was welcomed with open arms within the bowels of the party and offered a ministry.

Of course, Senior Counsel’s failure or inability to produce the evidence by no means absolves the UWP of the alleged misdeeds.  It could be that either James and his Ministers were ‘good at covering their tracks”, or Astaphan and his team of investigators were completely incompetent.  Forget the third option; there is no smoke without fire.  No colour blind Dominican would put their neck on the chopping block for the integrity of the men in blue.  But be that as it may, the goal of the DLP’s vociferous campaign against UWP’s alleged corruption in 2000 was never about the truth or good governance.  The strategy, plain and simple, was designed to win the election and wrest the government from the Untied Workers Party and it worked.  Ms. Charles might have been duped (along with the majority of voters) into believing Douglas’s story but the leadership and campaign strategists of the DLP knew all along that they were just playing politics.

Now the UWP is hoping that that same strategy will work in its favour.  Many of the top strategists and advisors in the DLP’s 2000 campaign (and some would say disgruntled labourites) – Arthie Martin, Bernard Wiltshire, Gabriel Christian, Severin Mckenzie etc-are now solidly card carrying members of the UWP or otherwise openly sympathetic to their cause.  They’ve now become the opposition’s think tank and strategy gurus and in concert with what one labour bigwig dubbed “the most unholy trinity of Lennox Linton, Angelo Alleyne and Matt Peltier”, have presented an even more damning and compelling case against Skerrit and the DLP.

Probably no Prime Minister or seating government in the history of Dominica has been awash in such a sea of scandals and allegations of corruption.  And contrary to Senoir Counsel’s inability to produce the hard facts, Linton and the rest of the opposition have been able to produce a corpus of evidence that at the least links Skerrit (and other ministers) to some shady and very questionable things.  In the case of the ‘bin bobol’ and land purchases, Skerrit’s subsequent settlement of unpaid land transfer fees and Dopwell’s refund to the Dominica treasury, smacks a certain complicity and culpability in what Linton and Allene have often described as “attempt on the part of Mr. Skerrit to defraud the treasury.”   Furthermore, Skerrit’s defense, explanations and refutations (or lack thereof) are grossly inadequate and wanting.  His handlers for the most part have not done any better.  Besides, if Astaphan had any ‘dirt’ on Edison James, Earl Williams and the rest of the UWP gang, he would have used it to neutralize Linton, Allene and Pelier and silence the opposition (Maybe however he decided against using the evidence as it would incriminate Timothy).

Skerrit and the DLP however appear unscathed by the allegations and some might say well on course for another victory at the polls.  In the site of hardcore Labourites, the Prime Minister can do no wrong.  And among marginal supporters and independents, the UWP strategy does not appear to be gaining much ground precisely so because they see it as just that; campaign strategy.

Hardcore political issues such as the economy, healthcare, crime and violence, education etc simply do not matter in this election.  This election is about spin and strategy.  And not unlike 2000 and 2005, the outcome will be determined by which side the electorate deems most credible.

When the dust had partly cleared over the 2005 campaign and elections, Linton, in what one might consider a sort of concession speech admitted that the Labour Party had won because the voters had decided to believe Astaphan over him.  It’s déjà vu all over again.  In less than twelve hours we will know whether Linton succeeded this time in convincing the electorate that the UWP should be voted back into office or Senior Counsel succeeds in persuading voters that a DLP government is the best for Dominica at this time.