The closer we get to the up-coming election the more we realize the weakness of this Government and the incompetence of its members. Now they seem to have become a laughingstock and the brunt of bad jokes about political naivety.
Whenever we take the time and objectively examine this Government’s behavior we notice that it does not display an understanding of the use of political power as a tool for development. Where anything succeeds it is not because of their guiding-hand, instead it happens despite of them. In other words, their being in power accounts for very little and thereby offers no good reason to keep them around.
So bad political jokes have increased since the Hughes tsunami joke, and they mostly reflect on the wreckage of the last four years of this Government. The jokes are not funny because they are about the political failures and personal in-capabilities that have held Anguilla back. In these jokes, people say that if nothing spectacular happens between now and the date of the election it would be hard for them to see themselves playing a part in putting this Government back in power. They are also saying that, more and more, they find that it runs against good reasoning to put them back in office again.
Nothing happens before its time. In the aftermath of the “Hughes Tsunami” so much debris would have washed ashore that when the pieces are examined it will be obvious, and indeed so conclusive, that a blind man could see that the CM is in deep water swimming against the political tide – and should get out.
Perhaps this next election is the lifeline he should grab on to so he can be pulled-out; dried off; sent home; and kindly allowed to read the historical accounts of men like Toussaint L’Overture; Jean-Jacques Dessalines; Henri Christophe; and philosophers like John Mill and John Locke. Hopefully, he might then better understand the meaning of leadership, democracy and representative government. His action in the last four years is demonstrative of the fact that he knows very little about the role or function of government in this modern era, particularly at this period of Anguilla’s development.
His attitude in the tsunami drill confirms his inability to distinguish between what is real and what is illusory. This should put us on notice that he should no longer be in politics. Furthermore, the debris floating around is plenty of proof that he lacks the knowledge required to hold the important office he now occupies. Because he is incapable of looking forward he therefore always look backward. This kind of politics is founded on blame and that is what he does.
When the bundle of his errors is loosened it unfolds warped pictures of poor thought and lame ideas without any proper basis for obtaining any good. If this is embraced by Anguillians it would lead them to pitiful politics and poor economics. We can do better by trying something else.
The CM’s representation of the mock tsunami drill may be laughable and can be turned into a big bad joke — but his Government’s menu is already full of bad jokes when you peruse the items on it. Most of the things on it are enough to give “political sick stomach” as it is a collection of foolish ideas and “political absurdities”.
On it is included the perennial blames and fights with Governors – about things he could not change. It at best made him an irritant to FCO, and in effect reduced the amicability and cordiality that should exist between the two offices. He destroyed that, and it has left him with nothing to show for it!
It also contains the unnecessary fights with the Teachers’ Union and Cuisinart Management showing a man with dictatorial tendencies without proper policies or political savvy. And who, in the midst of economic hard times, used poor timing and displayed the wanton behavior of a political infant that does not understand what is going on around him – a man confused by his own proposals and trapped by his own uttering.
Many times he called on the former Government to grow the economy and now that the opportunity is in his hands he has been proven more impotent than a wethered ram-goat. But during the last election he chastised the system on its taxation stance. When he won he, as Minister of Finance in the Shakespearean sense, introduced the “most unkindest” budgets of all. They contained more tax provisions than were ever put forward or even anticipated by one of his predecessors. He increased the burden and widened the incidence of taxation to a level quite contrary to what he campaigned on. That alone makes him unworthy to seek reelection, and less likely for thinking persons to vote for him again.
He banded about the idea of independence relying heavily on the emotional appeal from Anguillians. But to most of them that was a nonstarter, because they recognized the immediate benefits coming from holding a British passport are, in contrast, much better than the “half-baked” promises he promoted. They realized too that his positions change by the moment and never came through. To them he talks for talk’s sake and without intent to perform.
Some the people who voted for him before are now badly discontented with what has come out of his tenure in office. They are now thinking out loud about what could have happened if they had followed his poorly thought out ideas on the passport issue. Those with sons and daughters who went to the UK, and are in the work force or at school, are asking what would their children be doing had the people of this island swallowed the CM’s frolics and denied them an opportunity of a lifetime.
Try as you may, you can never say that he has done anything to make Anguillians proud. He has managed to mastermind a stagnating mumbo-jumbo of “below the belt politics”. When you look at the progress of other BOTs around us, you are prompted to ask the question: what is our leadership doing? The solution then becomes, if they are not producing then they should be let go.
Years ago Oliver Cromwell said to the Rump Parliament, as he sacked them: “You have been too long for any good you have done. Depart I say and let us have done with you in the name of God go!” But because we want to create a properly run political system, we must also go back to what Abraham Lincoln said: “It is with malice toward none but with fairness to right”. In keeping with this our mission must be to do right by Anguillians. We do not believe that this is now being done. We think that definitively there is the need for change now.
The people of Anguilla must now, in 2014, accept and come to grips with the fact that Hubert Hughes does not have what it takes, so it is time to get rid of the nonsense that he as, CM continues, to perpetrate. Staying on that course leads to nowhere. And in the interest of the country we have to make the necessary choice by changing him in the 2015 election.
The question to be raised, based on what we have seen lately, is how long can we wait? When we try to answer this, it must be borne in mind that we can only go up from here. The correct change comes only when the bar is set higher, and then by putting new players in the game. We can’t wait any longer!
Remember too that the people of this island many years ago purposefully sang out loud for change when they sang: “We are out to build a new Anguilla”. Did they waste their breath? Are we waiting for Armageddon? Or is this the time to bust the move? Yes, now is the time! We know, however, that we don’t want to wait later to have to sing for our supper. What we need is a politically progressive system that will not spawn economic distress simply because we do not know any better. Other than that, “we ayn guyne nowhere” with them! And time is of the essence!
