Grenada Analysts Give Reasons For NNP’s Election Loss

 

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC - A university lecturer and a civic leader say nepotism and a politics of exclusion are the main factors which caused Keith Mitchell’s New National Party (NNP) to lose the general election after 13 straight years in Government.

Dr. Wendy Grenade lecturer in political science at the Cave Hill Campus University of the West Indies (UWI) and Judy Williams who Heads the Grenada Community Development Agency (GRENCODA) were assessing the NNP’s loss in last Tuesday’s elections.

Dr. Grenade said the NNP made some fundamental mistakes which resulted in the blurring of the lines between party and government such as the politicisation of the public service.

"Breaking the rules became normal. It was normalised and we saw nepotism become normalized and I think people saw the role the NNP party was playing in that party members were distributing the resources of the state and in that context where you have a small society, where you have limited resources to go around in a context of clientelism it becomes problematic," Dr. Grenade said in an interview with the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

"But we saw an emerging middle class that flies in the face of the clientelism. People are saying we do not just need you to build a nice bridge and a road for us.

We want you to look at our concrete realities. Where are you taking us in terms of the vision for this country"
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), which won seven seats in the 2003 elections, increased its parliamentary to 11 seats last week, leaving the NNP with the remaining four.

The biggest casualty was former deputy prime minister and deputy political leader Gregory Bowen who lost the constituency to Carl Hood, one of two pastors who contested the poll.

Williams said the exclusion of the wider society and the labelling of persons and institutions perceived to be opposed to the Government worked against the Mitchell administration.

"I think we can say without fear or favour that indeed the NNP in the last 13 years has done everything to exclude the wider society and institutions and individuals carried a label or a tag under the NNP," Williams told CMC.

"Two many of us felt excluded or we felt that we were already carrying a label so to go now and expose yourself further in a public opinion poll, is just looking for further trouble," Williams added.

Several NNP constituency branches had packed up on food and drinks in anticipation of a fourth term victory at the polls, however this celebrations was called off after it became clear that Grenadians had voted for change.
New Prime Minister Tillman Thomas is already on the job and his cabinet is being sworn in during a public ceremony at the national stadium last week Sunday.

 

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