SUE RETURNS

Even as the AIA is trying to woo more visitors to our beautiful country, highlighting the upcoming Carnival bacchanal, one frequent flyer visitor is already amongst us, a little early for the bacchanal, but perhaps her familiarity with SVG has told her that, given impending elections there must be plenty “bacchanal” this year so better to get in here early.

Yes, reminding us of earlier years, the infamous Sue, of legal infamy, has raised her ugly head. In a throwback to earlier years and political controversies, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has again threatened to sue his former political companion, Jomo Thomas, Speaker of the

House of Assembly between 2015 and 2020. Gonsalves accuses Thomas of slander in one of his radio programmes. It is the kind of juicy “comess” that titillates us in the run- up to an election, diverting attention from what ought to be the real issues in regard to governance and social and economic development for our country. That it should involve Gonsalves and his former Speaker, is by itself not too surprising. Since Thomas left the Gonsalves ship, it is clear that there is an intensity about the exchanges between these two. It must also be noted that Thomas is one of the lawyers involved in the contentious legal dispute between the government and the public sector unions over the vaccine mandate.

It is unfortunate that yet another public spat between these two has reached this stage with those sections of the media which revel in such matters already seeming to revel in this developing story. The “comess” is made all the sweeter since it revolves around a former female police officer who was the centre of a controversy involving the Prime Minister himself.

Adding to the politics of the situation, the Prime Minister has now found himself in another public row with yet another former colleague of his, Kishore Shallow, the current President of the governing body of West Indies cricket, Cricket West Indies (CWI). Gonsalves was long publicly identified as a supporter of Shallow and proud that his countryman had risen to that position. There was even talk of Shallow’s political affiliation with the governing ULP. But somewhere along the line, for reasons not properly explained, the relationship turned sour, and Shallow has been identified as a candidate for the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) in the upcoming elections. Critically, he is expected to contest the North Leeward constituency, a knife-edge seat which the ULP holds by the narrowest of margins, one vote. This constituency has a reputation for changing sides at almost every election. In addition, sport and cricket in particular, is a very important issue there, providing a platform for the CWI President.

It is sad to see not only the Gonsalves-Shallow partnership gone sour but also the Prime Minister leading the charge that it is unethical for Shallow to be contesting elections while President of an important regional institution like the CWI. One would have thought that should cricket authorities in the region be unhappy about Shallow’s position, the opposition should come from those sources.

Again, and Shallow himself has raised the point, would the contradictions have been raised if Shallow had been a candidate for the ULP? This is a matter of speculation of course but the whole issue seems to be so uncalled for that it raises speculation about what is called “sour grapes”. In fact, it has fuelled speculation over what is the basis for the apparent falling out between Gonsalves and Shallow.

Another unsavoury aspect of the fallout is the not-so-muted suggestion that Shallow’s defection from the ULP camp may be at the root of the CWI decision not to award SVG any matches for the upcoming very lucrative Australia tour. This can turn out to be a very serious issue in the context of the local elections and if not properly handled can take us into quite murky corners.

PM Gonsalves tries to exude his usual confidence about his ability to lead his party to a sixth consecutive victory at the polls, but he clearly has his work cut out for him. Such unnecessary controversies will certainly not help.

Moreover, they are the sort of issues which the Opposition is sure to try and exploit. The government is, understandably, bound to pitch its appeal to voters on its record in handling the economy and socio-economic development and, if truth be told, the Opposition has been less than impressive in providing clear alternatives. One would therefore think that the matters of governance and such extraneous matters involving the Prime Minister, who seems to be never far from controversy, would be areas on which the Opposition would concentrate. After two and a half decades of rule by one party there must be the tendency for persons to get fed up of the same face, and all the idiosyncrasies such as the “World Boss” caption, while possibly a crowd pleaser years ago, may now be found out of place, and even incongruous. We can only hope that the political campaign does not go down the slippery slope.

• Renwick Rose is a Social and Political commentator.