The PNP-PDM Reform Sideshow

[Author’s Note:  I am acutely mindful that the vast majority of readers of this weblog couldn’t care any less about the political goings on in my tiny home country of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI).  But new developments there are such that I feel obliged to do so today for the first time in over eight months.  This commentary was also published today by The TCI Journal.  I beg your indulgence.]

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It was hardly surprising when the current leaders of the Progressive National Party (PNP) challenged the legitimacy of our interim government in a press release they issued last week. After all, they have incited street protests in recent months by calling Governor Gordon Wetherell a “racist dictator” who has taken the TCI into “an Adolf Hitler era.”

Regrettably, about 10 percent of our people are still all too willing to eat up their … BS. Even worse, international media are all too happy to make it seem as though the 90 percent of us who fully support our interim government are no different from this hopelessly misguided 10 percent – who reportedly expect nothing from political leaders except “hams at Christmas”.

Whereas, in fact, we are demanding that the British prosecute these PNP leaders for perpetrating an epidemic of corruption that has left our country bankrupt; recover the national assets they expropriated for personal gain; restore good governance; and provide the necessary funds to bail us out of the financial mess which Britain had a constitutional responsibility to prevent.  And we are demanding that they do all of this before returning our country to local rule next year … or later.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding the Johnny-come-lately efforts of Lord Nigel Jones to enable mischief-making by local politicians, here’s the informed remonstration Sir Robin Auld offered in this respect in his 23 March 2010 letter to the FAC:

All or most of the troubles [Governor Wetherell] faces in trying to restore the territory to good order, efficient governance and financial health – and the increasing chorus of challenge to his conduct of the territory’s affairs – flow from the British Government’s failure to provide urgently needed financial support.

This state of affairs follows decades of the Foreign Office’s stewardship, or lack of it, in the exercise of its ultimate constitutional responsibility for the probity and efficiency of the territory’s governance. The Foreign Office now has direct control, yet seemingly considers that that does not carry with it financial responsibility to lift its charge out of the administrative and financial mire into which it has allowed it to fall.

It is noteworthy, however, that the new challengers for the upcoming PNP leadership contest are paying due deference to the legitimate and wholly salutary authority Britain is now exercising over our country. They are also participating in the political processes established by our interim government.  Indeed, that Carlos Simons and E. Jay Saunders attended last week’s session of the Consultative Forum on Constitutional and Electoral Reform is testament to this fact.

This brings me to the current leaders of the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) who, frankly, have been exhibiting so many symptoms of schizophrenia during this interim period that they really should be disqualified from leading their party, to say nothing of leading our country.

Here, for instance, is how the Free Press quoted party leader Doug Parnell in June 2009 not just pooh poohing any notion of forming a unity government to preserve local rule, but even expressing frustration with the British over delays in suspending our constitution:

We cannot come together with the people who created this situation for our country [i.e., the need to suspend the constitution]. It is not an option for us… We are in a situation that cannot continue to go on. Our country is bleeding; we are in a fiscal crisis….

(“PDM: For the Record,” June 2009)

Yet Governor Wetherell had barely completed reading Her Majesty’s proclamation suspending the constitution last August before PDM leaders were already working “together with the people who created this situation” to undermine the legitimacy of our interim government.

This began when they joined discredited and disgraced PNP leaders in making patently hypocritical claims about the British squashing the democratic freedoms of TCIslanders. And it escalated to organized street protests, where they all marched arm in arm shouting incredulously, “We want our country back!”

But their unity of purpose assumed its most delusional and mischievous form last week when they showed utter contempt for our interim government by announcing their own Constitutional and Electoral Review Commission.

For they made this announcement on the very day they refused to attend the Forum session referenced above, which was scheduled so that Kate Sullivan, the duly appointed UK expert on constitutional and electoral reform, could hear the views of local political and civic leaders.

Mind you, by conducting their own review, they are clearly exercising one of the democratic freedoms they claim the British have squashed.

But you’d think they would have been instructed, if not chastened, by the fact that the most revered members of their respective parties actually attended this session and properly participated. These members included, for the PNP, former chief ministers Washington Misick and Norman Saunders, and for the PDM, former chief ministers Derek Taylor and Oswald Skippings. Alas, even this has not deterred them from marching on with their impudent and foolhardy sideshow.

Of course, it is entirely consistent with Sir Robin’s indictment of the current PNP leaders that they are engaging in this kind of ignorant, immature and irresponsible behavior. That the PDM leaders are now aping them, however, is, well, schizophrenic. 

But it does not take a psychologist to explain this.  For here’s the dispositive insight I proffered over a year ago on the antic antagonism they were beginning to show towards the prospect of an interim government:

These leaders are probably motivated more by concerns about losing their jobs and political influence than by any concern about protecting our presumed birthright.  After all, amongst those of us who pleaded for the British to intervene were [PDM leaders] who reportedly fantasized about being automatically installed in power.

(“Putting concerns about British Intervention into Perspective,” Caribbean Net News, March 20, 2009)

That said, I have no doubt that Ms Sullivan will be happy to receive whatever reform recommendations this PNP/PDM commission presents.  But it is an insult not only to Ms Sullivan’s team but also to the Forum (which, by the way, is comprised of loyal members of both the PNP and PDM) that these leaders are conducting this redundant constitutional and electoral review.

More to the point, how can we have confidence in leaders who evidently believe that showing utter contempt for the consultative process the British established is the best way to get the British to respect their points of view?

Again:

I feel constrained to remind these quixotic nationalists that we are still a dependent UK territory. And nothing reinforced this reality quite like the fact that we were reduced to pleading with the British to launch this intervention…

[Moreover]

I urge our political leaders to stop raising petty and misguided concerns about how the British will guide us through this process.  Instead, they would do well to concentrate on making themselves more capable and trustworthy to lead us into the future – once the British return the reins of government back over to us.

(“Putting concerns about British Intervention into Perspective,” Caribbean Net News, March 20, 2009)

Incidentally, it would be remiss of me not to comment in this context on Forum member Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson’s recommendations for constitutional and electoral reform, which she had published on Sunday.  

I readily concede that, just like the leaders of the PNP and PDM, she had every right to do so. All the same, it speaks volumes about how little respect she has not only for the Forum’s ongoing review but also for her fellow members that she preempted their collective recommendations in this unilateral fashion. 

Not to mention how much this undermines the authority and functions of the Forum. At least Carlos Simons had the decency to resign….

Finally, I have broken my pledge to refrain from commenting on local politics only because I fear that this collusion between the PNP and PDM can mislead a critical mass of our people down the same primrose path that the PDM was accusing the PNP of leading our nation down not so long ago.

Therefore, I urge all TCIslanders to shun their self-aggrandizing ploy and show enlightened national support for the public sessions that Ms Sullivan and Forum members are holding throughout the country.  I also urge patience as Governor Wetherell works with the new British government, which has already declared unconditional support for his leadership, to restore good governance and fiscal soundness to our country.

Related commentaries:
Putting …British intervention into perspective

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