THREE Caribbean Community states — St Lucia, Guyana and Jamaica — are currently in general election mode, although dates for constitutionally held national polls are far apart.

But some rather striking differences characterise their early campaigning, none perhaps sharper than that of St Lucia’s ruling United Workers Party (UWP) of Prime Minister Stephenson King.

It has to do with the unprecedented huge level of political funding from Taiwan, a development now very much in the public domain and involving at least US$3.8 million a year for expenditures in the 11 constituencies won by the UWP’s candidates at the December 2007 general election when it defeated the then governing Labour Party of Dr Kenny Anthony.

In the case of Guyana where, unlike all other Caricom states, elections are based wholly on the first-past-the-post (or winner takes all) electoral system, there is the emerging uniqueness of a first-ever alliance of opposition parties battling to wrest state power from the incumbent People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which is aiming to retain the Government for a fifth consecutive term.

An extension of this most interesting political development is that the traditionally dominant parliamentary opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) would most likely not be a registered contestant — the first time since pre-independence years — for the coming elections, expected no later than November.

By contrast, Jamaica will be going into new elections next year — possibly a snap poll before what’s constitutionally due by September 2012 — with its two traditional electoral thoroughbreds, the incumbent Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) of Prime Minister Bruce Golding and the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) of Portia Simpson Miller, in a straight fight amid current speculations of the JLP being restricted, for the first time, to a one-term government.

Not surprisingly, such a humiliating prospect has been dismissed by its strategists, although three successive public opinion polls had the PNP maintaining, though with fluctuating averages, clear leads ahead of the JLP.

Taiwanese “gratitude”

ST LUCIA: The looming confrontation for state power in St Lucia presents an interesting example of what should NOT be tolerated in the form of contemptuous foreign political interference in the domestic affairs of a sovereign state in ANY region of the world.

The hot point is the politically poisonous politics of a clear example of bribery by a foreign government — namely Taiwan — as an expression of gratitude for having secured diplomatic relations with St Lucia in 2008 with the UWP administration in Castries.

For the exposé of this development, the people of St Lucia and other parts of the Caribbean would perhaps owe parliamentarian Jannine Compton, daughter of the late St Lucian Prime Minister and long-serving leader of the UWP Sir John Compton, a debt of gratitude.

Following the death of her father, who became seriously ill shortly after the December 2007 poll, Compton successfully contested the Micoud North constituency that has long been a stronghold of the UWP.

Subsequent internal divisions within the UWP, that also included monies flowing from Taiwan, via its embassy in St Lucia, to the 11 UWP parliamentarians, were to result in Jannine Compton’s disclosure in Parliament of EC$1 million (approximately US$350,000) being allocated to each of those MPs to spend as they consider appropriate in their respective constituencies.

However, whatever the nature of the agreements between the UWP parliamentarians and the Taiwanese authorities, via their ambassador in St Lucia, Tom Chou, this bizarre arrangement of foreign funding for parliamentarians of an independent state was completely in violation of the country’s constitution and Finance Act that require public projects, of any sort, to be expended through the Consolidated Fund.

Jannine Compton’s Stand

In the face of ongoing discontent within and over the UWP, Ms Compton did what her other party parliamentarians should have done: she gave a record of how she has spent the EC$1 million on projects in her constituency.

It was a gesture that certainly did not amuse Prime Minister King, who was to remark that she was “only embarrassing her colleagues…”

Embarrassing her colleagues, or seeking to protect St Lucia’s integrity from claims of political bribery by Taiwan, and more specifically, endorsing the concept of public accountability for funds privately allocated for a public project?

Ms Compton was to extend political and personal courage and decency further by her resignation from the UWP and currently sits as an Independent in the St Lucia Parliament.

Expectedly, Labour Party leader and former Prime Minister Anthony raised the serious implications of what he characterised as “a bizarre scandal” that confirmed, he said, “how Taiwan had bought, at the 2008 general election, the UWP’s favour to ensure diplomatic relations and is currently releasing, annually, EC$1 million to each of the remaining 10 parliamentarians of that party ahead of the coming new elections…”

APNU not PNC

GUYANA: In Guyana, where preparations are being advanced for new presidential and parliamentary elections, the incumbent PPP and outgoing President Bharrat Jagdeo are talking and behaving as if there were no need to fear defeat, since the main challenge to be faced would come from a motley collection of three small parties and the major opposition People’s National Congress (PNC) under the umbrella of what is still to be officially launched (possibly before month end) as A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). It would be under the leadership of a retired brigadier of the Guyana Defence Force, David Granger.

In response to Granger’s and APNU’s frequent accusations about corruption and nepotism against the Government, both President Jagdeo, who is constitutionally debarred from seeking more than two successive terms, and the PPP’s presidential candidate, Donald Ramotar (general secretary of the party), have been openly boasting that the APNU “cannot win since the arithmetic of at least the last two elections provides a clear answer”.

If the current scenario persists with APNU, as the main challenger to the PPP, alongside the Alliance for Change (AFC) that won five seats at the 2006 elections when it was just one year old, then the biggest surprise would be that for the first time in its history, the PNC, led by President Forbes Burnham until his death in 1985, and subsequently by the now also late Desmond Hoyte, will not be a contestant for the coming elections.

For both the 2001 and 2006 elections, the PNC’s leader, Robert Corbin, was the party’s unsuccessful presidential candidate. He chose to step aside, amid continuing leadership wrangles and controversial party elections, in favour of Granger who won the prize of presidential candidate by defeating Carl Greenidge, an economist, and former finance minister (under Desmond Hoyte’s presidency) by a plurality of merely 15 votes out of 666 valid ballots cast.

‘Dudus’ and WikiLeaks

JAMAICA: The next general election is due in September 2012 but can be constitutionally delayed until January 2013. But there are strong signals that it could come as a snap poll, as soon as Prime Minister Golding thinks he has an advantage over the PNP.

It would occur against the backdrop of extensive media reporting on the sizzling exposés surrounding the capture and extradition of the accused drug baron Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, as well as disclosures and commentaries in relation to controversial cables from the US Embassy in Kingston, as originally released by WikiLeaks.

There is an ongoing guessing game whether the JLP administration of Prime Minister Golding can succeed in preventing the PNP from returning to state power that it held for four successive terms until September 2007.

In that election, the JLP secured a four-seat majority in the 60-member House, but with about one per cent more of the overall popular votes cast.

WikiLeaks’ controversial cables hold much interest for both parties and their followers, the PNP in particular, in relation to biting criticisms reportedly levelled by its former National Security Minister Peter Phillips, against party leader Simpson Miller.

Phillips recently made clear, without engaging in details about statements attributed to him in the leaked diplomatic transmissions, that he intended to “work hard” for the PNP’s return to Government at the next general election under the leadership of Simpson Miller.

In a telephone conversation I had with him last Thursday, Phillips emphasised that he would NOT be contesting any leadership position at the PNP’s coming annual convention later this year. He also said he was looking forward to “a meeting with Portia when she returns home from abroad”.

Well, more than Jamaicans, across the political divide, will undoubtedly be monitoring developments on how “Peter and Sister P” reach out to each other, following the PNP’s coming political ‘road show’ in the form of a scheduled “Express Bus Tour” that gets going this coming Wednesday — all with the next general election clearly in mind.