Robert Buddan
ANTIGUA AND Haiti represent contrasting pictures of politics on both cultural sides of the Caribbean.
In Antigua, opposition parties waited for 28 years to gain power, preferring to follow the constitutional method of democracy no matter how long it took, while in Haiti the opposition overthrew the Government just four years after it was elected.
DIFFERENCES
Antigua has held 12 elections in 53 years (under adult suffrage), about one election every four and a half years.
Aristide himself pointed out that 32 (now 33) coups have forced changes of government in Haiti's 200 years of independence, about one coup every six years.
The difference with Antigua is that a democratic culture has established itself, one that generally respects the constitutional rules of the game. In Haiti, such a culture has not been given a chance to take root.
The people of Haiti have turned out in significant numbers in the 1990s to elect their governments but the Haitian elite remains undemocratic. What is worse, the established democracies of the United States, France and Canada have failed to respect the constitution of Haiti as well.
In the English-speaking Caribbean, democracy has survived longest when external powers have conceded control to nationals. Democracy has existed longer without British control than it ever did under the British.
The Anglophile view has held that democracy has succeeded in the English-speaking Caribbean because Britain passed on its democratic culture to its ex-colonies. In truth, Britain passed on slavery and a plantation culture during its 300 years of colonialism.
After emancipation Britain abolished the limited system of representation by instituting Crown Colony government with direct rule from Britain.
This happened in Jamaica after the Morant Bay Rebellion and in a number of Caribbean colonies, even though people were demanding greater democratic space.
It has been through the efforts of generations of Caribbean people that adult suffrage was won, political parties and trade unions formed, ministerial government established and political independence achieved. At each stage, the British only conceded the inevitable.
THE ANTIGUAN CASE
Democracy followed different patterns in the English-speaking Caribbean. In Antigua, the progressive movement did not develop as early as it did in Jamaica and neither did a two-party system emerge as strongly.
In fact, the Colonial Office used Jamaica as a test case for extending adult suffrage and self-government to the wider Commonwealth. Antigua's first elections under adult suffrage took place seven years after it did in Jamaica.
Antigua's dominant party has always been the Antigua Labour Party (ALP). It won all of the seats in the first four elections, thus entirely dominating the government between 1951 and 1968. The ALP is unique in the region for this.
A turning point occurred in 1968 when the Progressive Labour Movement (PLM) won four seats and then served one term from 1971 to 1976. Even though the ALP remained dominant and went on to win all elections between 1976 and 2004, it never regained the complete dominance it once had.
It won just 49 per cent of the votes and 65 per cent of the seats to return to power in 1976. Some of its victories since have caused great controversy.
If Antigua has been the quintessential one-party dominant system in the Caribbean, Jamaica has been the prototype two-party system, especially between 1944 and 1992.
Jamaica's two main parties have usually won 100 per cent of the seats and over 90 per cent of the votes between them; have often split the votes by less than 60 to 40 per cent and have alternated in power more regularly than in any other Caribbean country.
PARTY SYSTEMS
The ALP was so strong and other parties so weak that in the 1951, 1956 and 1960 elections only half or one-third of the seats were contested, leaving ALP candidates unopposed in the rest. It was only in 1965 that all seats were contested for the first time. Similarly, Bustamante and the BITU were so strong in Jamaica that in 1944, the PNP did not contest all the constituencies.
The ALP owes its historical strength to the fact that it is the oldest political party in Antigua, became the political arm of the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU), and was led by Antigua's premier labour leader, Vere Bird snr. who became president of the union and the party in 1943.
The combination of the party, union and leader was not dissimilar to that of the JLP, BITU and Bustamante in Jamaica.
The difference was that in Jamaica, the PNP-NWU-Manley configuration was able to match and supersede it.
Antigua had no alternative party, union and leadership personality of any prominence. The first real alternative party was the PLM. Other parties had existed but they were not durable and national in scope.
The PLM was successful because it was formed after a schism in the ATLU and well-known personalities, including the ATLU General Secretary, formed a new union and grouped together the bits and pieces of failed micro parties. In 1968 it contested four new constituencies added that year and won all of these.
In Jamaica, the NDM was formed after a schism in the JLP which took leading personalities with it. However, there was no split in the BITU and the NDM lacked the labour base and appeal that is so critical and which the BITU provided to the JLP.
The PLM was able to win 49.9 per cent of the votes in the 1976 elections to the ALP's 49 per cent, but the ALP won 11 of the 16 seats. The PLM waned and subsequently broke up allowing the ALP to dominate for 28 years subsequently.
By 1992, opposition parties united to form the United Progressive Party to lead a general strike against a scandalous Vere Bird government. Bird retired from politics shortly after.
THE DECLINE OF THE ALP
The personality of Vere Bird Snr., the dominance of the Bird family in Antigua's politics and business, and independence in 1981 under Bird's leadership, helped to restore the ALP's position in the 1980s.
But decline eventually began to set in. Bird's own retirement and death in the 1990s removed his aura from the ALP. His successor was supposed to have been his elder son Vere Jr. but he fell from grace after major scandals and was replaced by Lester Bird.
Antiguan democracy and the integrity of its politics have not been among the most reputable in the region over the years. Like many labour parties it has lost its labourist programme and has been overtaken by middle class leaders.
The ALP has been personalist, often run as a personal machine of the leader. The rule of dominant personalities and a dominant family has caused schisms and disaffection in Antiguan politics. Vere Bird Sr. held on to power for too long.
Whatever the sins of Lester Bird's government, it must be congratulated for holding elections and allowing Jamaica's electoral office to assist in having free and fair elections. Danville Walker and his team must be congratulated for work well done.
The opposition must be congratulated for contesting elections and following the rules of constitutional democracy. Both sides must be commended for accepting the results and contributing to a peaceful change of power.
CARICOM AND DEMOCRACY
Antigua's new Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, is the incoming chairman of CARICOM. He is also a member of the CARICOM core group of Prime Ministers on Haiti along with the Prime Ministers of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas and St. Lucia.
Mr. Latortue, who claims to be the new prime minister of Haiti, has come to power by entirely different and corrupt means, in contrast to Mr. Spencer.
Mr. Spencer must carry on Mr. Patterson's leadership and insist on a role for CARICOM in rebuilding Haiti, for free and fair elections, and for an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Aristide's overthrow.
I am sure Mr. Spencer and Mr. Patterson stand ready to recommend Jamaica's Electoral Office of Jamaica to the Haitian process, and Mr. Spencer is well placed to insist that only when the rules of constitutional democracy are respected will Haiti enjoy reactivated membership in CARICOM.
Democracy is an important currency that pays for membership in CARICOM. Antigua has earned its membership. Haiti must now do so again.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
E-mail:
Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
