I have an apology to make. Some months ago, in April 2014, I wrote that the only way Chief Minister Hubert Hughes does not contest the 2015 general elections “is if he is in his coffin”. I meant physically. I meant dead. It now seems as though I got it all wrong. Chief Minister Hubert Hughes recently announced publicly that he will not be contesting the elections. His announcement may well be because he considers himself dead politically for I heard him say recently that “a politician doesn’t die until the people say he is dead”. I don’t know if people told him he is dead but, for now, it seems that Hubert Benjamin Hughes’ days at the forefront of Anguilla’s politics are coming to an end. He also announced that his party (the AUM) will be led by Dr Lorenza Webster of District 1 and that his son, Haydn Hughes, will replace him in Road South.
Hubert has much confidence in Haydn’s preparedness for political leadership. To quote him: “My sacrifice has not been in vain. When I used to travel, I made sure I brought the biggest books for Haydn to read because he likes to read. And I can put my neck on the block that there is no politician, or none of the intellectuals in Anguilla,[that] can stand up in a public debate and beat Haydn”. There is no doubt that, like his father, Haydn is a good talker.
With respect to the timing of Hubert’s exit from the political stage, I am not ashamed to admit that I got it all wrong for, after all, it has long been known that politics is not an exact science. In this regard, a lot of what I would now go on to say may also prove to be wrong.
Ever since I wrote that piece on Hubert, back in April, people have never ceased asking me which party, or which of the candidates, I think will win in 2015. In my view it is hard to say. Things very tight in most of the districts! What I would venture to say, though, is that the safest seat, in 2015, is Valley North (District 3) which I feel strongly the incumbent, McNiel Rogers, will win without a fight. In 2010, Sutcliffe Hodge (then an Independent, but now DOVE) fell short of winning it by 25 votes when he had the support of the AUM. He doesn’t have that support this time around. Most of that support will now go to Current (Elkin Richardson, the AUM’s candidate) but there is no way that Current could generate enough volts to electrocute McNiel.
Having said that, I must admit that most of the other seats are too close to call. In District 1, for example, there is a three-way fight and a significant determinant of who the winner will be depends in large part on how Terry Harrigan’s and Kenneth Harrigan’s supporters vote. It has been said that their supporters will most likely vote for Palmavon Webster (Independent) in which case she has a good chance of winning. And if they vote for Othlyn Vanterpool (AUF) then he could win. But it is most unlikely that those votes would go to Dr Lorenzo Webster because the Harrigan families have never supported the AUM. Actually, the AUM had never held the District 1 seat except in 1980 when it was won by its leader, Ronald Webster. District 1 is not an AUM stronghold. In the 2010 elections, my good friend Samuel Webster (AUM), Lorenzo’s brother, polled 19.0% of the votes cast so the AUM has a lot of hard work to do if it is to win that seat in 2015.
What about District 2? It was my view in the 2010 general elections that the seat was too close call. But some weeks before the elections, Torpedo (John Ruan) passed by my museum and told me that Jerome Roberts (then APP) was goin to win the seat. Torpedo was right. Jerome won. Incidentally, while, as Supervisor of Elections, I was making my rounds to the various polling stations to make sure things were running fine, I happened to meet Vernon Fleming – who was manning a small tent for Jerome – on the Copse Road to the polling station. I enquired if he had any problems and, without any query from me, he blurted: “So far, Jerome is leading Cora [Richardson] by 50 votes”. When the votes for that District were counted, in the evening, Jerome beat Cora (AUF) by 41 votes. Both Vernon Fleming and Torpedo were on the mark. Somehow, in Anguilla, the candidates and their supporters have perfected the art of calculating votes to the extent that they know who the winners are, and by how many votes, long before the official results are known. Incidentally, Torpedo is predicting that Cora will beat Jerome (AUM) in 2015 perhaps because he knows that Hubert’s AUM had never won that seat. Time will prove whether Torpedo is right or wrong. All I would say is that that seat is too close to call.
In District 4, Valley South, I don’t see newcomer Leonard Kentish (DOVE) beating either the incumbent Evan Gumbs (AUM) or Victor Banks (AUF). So, in my view, the battle is really between Evan and Victor. Victor, who is getting a lot of solid punches from both the AUM and DOVE, has a tough fight on his hands if he is to recapture that seat – if he is to get back the votes he lost in 2010. By the way, Evan has warned his opponents not to take him by his looks. In his words, “I am very humble, but when you walk on my corn I will bawl out”.
Evan seems fairly confident that he will hold on to the seat and I guess he and his boys are again working out their numbers. That reminds me that in the 2010 elections the boys in Evan Gumbs’ camp had reckoned that he would beat Victor by some 220 votes. But one person in the camp wasn’t so sure. He had some concerns and said: “Yer know something! Let us take out 100 for crooks”. They did so – deducted 100 crooks – and reckoned that Evan would beat Victor by 120 votes. When the votes were counted, on election night, Evan beat him by 111.
In District 5 (Road North), Edison Alva Baird (Eddy), Independent, is in serious trouble. I don’t know how he goin get out of his situation alive – politically. I heard him telling a meeting at North Hill, some months ago, that “just how Christ raised Lazarus from the dead, we will raise the economy”. But how will he be able raise the economy when, right now, he seems to be stretched out on his political deathbed? Buxton, Cock and dem boys ready to bury him and place a slab of concrete on him. Who will raise him up, like Christ raised Lazarus?
Frankly speaking, Eddy’s political survival is under grave threat especially from newcomer Evalie Bradley (AUF) who boldly announced: “I come to you with no baggage attached, but with clean hands and a pure and sincere heart”. She could very well take the seat from him in view of the Front’s relatively strong support in that District, and because of the splitting of the AUM’s votes. Eddy’s support is severely weakened by Patrick ‘Sheriff’ Hanley (AUM) who will take from him most of the votes which he (Eddy) got when he ran for the AUM in 2010. I must admit that I always had great admiration for Eddy. Actually, I taught him at The Valley Secondary School many years ago, and I like him very much, but I cannot see how he could win in 2015. And neither can I see Sheriff winning Road North which was never an AUM stronghold. But time could prove me wrong. Moreover, I might even have my figures wrong because, according to Victor Banks (1993): “In politics one and one does not always make two”.
Now to District 6 (Road South). As political astute as Statchel Warner (Independent) is, he entered the race far too late to have any significant impact on its outcome. And as wonderful a person as Rev Dr Clifton Niles (DOVE) is, the DOVE party – of experienced professionals – has not yet begun to take root. It has not yet built a political base on which it could win an election. So the contest in Road South is really one between Curtis Richardson (AUF) and Haydn Hughes (AUM).
A critical factor in its outcome is where will the votes which Brent Davis (APP) got in 2010 go in 2015. About a year ago it was said that Brent was throwing his support behind Curtis. But we have not been hearing much along those lines in recent times. In 2010, the total votes polled by Curtis and Brent combined were 609 (Curtis 352, Brent 257) to Hubert’s 504. If, in 2015, Curtis were to get most of Brent’s votes then he stands a good chance of winning that seat. But we must not forget that District 6 has always been Hubert Hughes’ political power base, from 1976 to the present, except for a brief period when Maurice Connor dethroned him in 1981. If Haydn could hold on to that base, as well as get some of Brent’s votes, then he too has a fair chance of winning the seat, but he must know that Curtis is not prepared to lie down and let him roll over him. It was Curtis who declared in 2011: “I am not a kitten. I am a porcupine”. And that reminds me that Haydn ain’t easy either. I recall him at an AUM campaign meeting in West End, in 2004, blasting Eddy saying: he “is a nasty, blaspheming, unthankful, disloyal, slanderous, fierce liar, who is puffed up with an ego and lacks any substance”.
Lastly, District 7 (West End). I see the race as one between Kristy Richardson-Harrigan (AUM) and Cardigan ‘Cardi’ Connor (AUF), for I don’t think that Homer Richardson (DOVE) will be running. He doesn’t strike many people as a serious candidate because he is hardly ever on the island to allow the voters to get to know him and know what he has to offer. So it will be Kristy vs Cardi. Who will win is a tough call. In 2010, Walcott Richardson (AUM) polled 313 votes (46.3%), Wilmoth Hodge of the APP 183 (27.1%) and Kenswick Richardson of the AUF 178 (26.3%). In 2015, Kristy will get most of Walcott’s votes and Cardi will get most of Kenswick’s votes. Where Wilmoth’s votes go will be critical in determining which of the two candidates wins the seat. Also critical is the kind of support which Belto Hughes, the grandfather of politics in West End, will be able deliver for Cardi whom he has publicly endorsed.
Incidentally, Belto is still bitter over his expulsion from the AUM in 2004, and he is determined to see it on its knees come 2015. Speaking about his expulsion, I recall him saying that he “was stabbed in the back and left on the ground to bleed to death” by Hubert Hughes – and that Hubert “acted like Pontius Pilate . . . when [he] washed his hands and said, ‘See, I had nothing to do with that just man’”. The humiliation – the embarrassment – that Belto experienced back then is still fresh in his mind.
At this point, I must admit that what I have written, thus far, about the likely outcome of the 2015 general elections is pure conjecture. Pure speculation. Nothing scientific. Nothing based on any opinion poll that was carried out because in Anguilla’s politics opinion polls can’t work – don’t work. Therefore, if what I have written does not seem to make much sense, I would not be mad if I was told, or if people believe, that I got my degree in political science from the University of Dog Island. Why should I be mad? After all I would be in good company because one of the AUF’s candidates, for the 2015 general elections, got her degree in voodoo economics from the said university.
