Had you watched the proceedings in the House last week Friday two questions could come to your mind: Are we living in a bygone era? And can a fool play the fool? The emptiness of the CM’s antics, while not addressing the resolutions on the floor, showed that there is a vacancy for a good government. In fairness to the voting population they must employ the AUF Party in order to get done what needs to be done. What the CM was saying is foolishness and a monotonous repeat of the past. To take any part of it seriously is to live in a lost era of “jumbees and the obeah men”.
From this election should come a new beginning; the end of the “old lack of good political understanding”; and time for the introduction of modern legislative practice. This ‘vacancy of government” has been open for too long and now the time is ripe to fill it at the next election. What we saw last week was an unnecessary display of a combination of ignorance and arrogance by people that have been elected under the pretext of having solutions for all of our ills. The CM was so wrong, and spoke so long about very little. In the end he did not even speak to the motion before the House. It was ample proof of the need for a new and better government.
For the sake of Anguilla’s future he has to get out of there. We don’t need that tra-la-la. We want people in power that have something good to say and know how to say it decently. Supposedly, the resolutions before the House were for two ordinary, “run-of-mill”, duty-free exemptions. But the CM turned them into a performance of “rants and raves”; of how “guinea hen bring guinea pig”; “Morning Peter! Cabbage ma’am!” and other such mismatches of ideas. In other words, what he was saying amounted to nothing more than a confused monologue.
It was comical, but yet frightening, because that type of behavior “does gie man heart attack”. That performance was degenerate; debasing; and shameful. So that to allow him a further opportunity to publicly talk to us like that, in the name of Chief Minister, makes us a shabby, shameless lot that deserves to live in a state of political rot. We have another option and should not suffer this! Now is the time for you to exercise your option. Is watching the CM hyperventilate in the House and make a fool of himself — a learning situation? We already know that a fool can’t play the fool!
There are those who say they are sick of this behavior and that every time they see the CM on TV they wish they could throw a rock at it. What they should do is to carry those feelings with them to the polling booth and, when they get there, throw their vote to the AUF. They will thereby put an end to the sorry state of politics on the island which, truthfully speaking, is becoming increasingly unbearable.
Yes, brother, they are seeking to put us in a politically brain dead situation. How many times have you heard the same old nasty drivel from the mouth of the CM? How many times in the last fifty years have you seen him stand in the House to berate and denigrate another fellow politician and Anguillian? He has done this since the days of the Honourable Mr. Webster, and still continues in the “same vein” today. It seems that the only way to bring decency and proper debate to the House is to get him out of there.
Fellow citizens, you have been watching the action so you should know by now what to expect when you turn on your TV. Chances are you would see Members on both sides of the House sitting listlessly about as the Chief Minister harangues the House and, almost hysterically, goes on to abuse anyone who he perceives to have been critical of him or stands in the way of his desire to remain in power indefinitely. And does so cowardly hiding behind the cloak of parliamentary privilege and immunity. But this is not what we expect of sound representatives of the people. Let him not get away with this shameful behaviour! We must stop it now! More of him is more of that. More than that — nothing he says yields anything positive, yet he wants us to believe he is good for this country.
How can that be? Over the years, all he has done is to label good people with nasty and mean spirited comments designed to ruin their characters while we turn a deaf ear to it. Now is the time to turn him away and say enough of the wasting of our time with such emptiness. ENOUGH is enough! We got a country to run! We gave you three chances — and what? YOU BLEW THEM!
Now we want something more. We want less cussing; less one-man theatrics; and instead of a confused House — we have to clean out the House because, above all else, we are beginning to recognise the need for better representation. Also, the world is not like that any longer and the CM rants belong to the dung heap of Anguilla’s political history. We want to look at Anguilla with fresh eyes and to go forward and modernize our approach to the politics and economics of the island.
Mr Hughes’ hallucinations and political convulsions will not lead to change. We have seen this kind of behaviour many times before. Fellow voters, it is time to hear from our Government some talk of diversification and tourism expansion; about making use of some landmark natural resource and create a project like Harrison Cave in Barbados; about identifying investors who, under the right conditions, will develop other heritage properties into viable tourist attractions; about improving Anguilla’s attractiveness beyond just good beaches; about inviting nations who fish in our waters to conduct feasibility study; about raising quality shrimps in our ponds; and about the possibility of growing aloe and the manufacture of by-products from it be explored. All of this, it seems, would be time better spent than to sit around in the House of Assembly cussing one another while the public watch and wonder why they vote.
It is the voter who must understand the importance of his/her representative’s capabilities as they relate to his/her advancement. They must understand that a country’s progress is in the hands of the government, whereas the change of government is in the hands of the voter. That change does not come as a result of just turning a deaf ear — you must get rid of the person who is speaking. Lets face it! If this were a dance you would be anxious to find a new partner!
