Part 1

Voting Is a Fundamental Human Right!

By Kwame Nkosi Romeo

The story is our entourage;

Without it, we are blind

Does the blind man own his escort? 

No, neither do we, the story;

Rather, it is the story that owns us and directs us.

--Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah (1987)

Since the universal adult suffrage (right to vote) in 1951, the Antigua Labor Party (ALP) monopolized Antigua and Barbuda government for 57 of 72 years, except for Progressive Labor Movement (PLM) from 1971-1976 and the United Progressive Party (UPP) from 2004 -2014.

The ALP power shift saw the patrimonial regime of the V C Bird era of politics last more than four decades, eventually transitioning to son Lester Bird as prime minister from 1994 -2004, until the ALP leadership convention on Sunday, November 25, 2012. MPs John St.Luce and Gaston Browne challenged Lester Bird in earlier leadership struggles but failed in 1993 and 2009.

Again, Browne campaigned against Bird and eventually deposed the weakened and unpopular Opposition Leader by winning 213 or 54.2% of the 393 votes, ending Bird's normal political function of leadership and family dynasty but giving rise to Browne's latent Machiavellian characteristics that undermined political equality and clearly expressed by Prof. PLO Lumumba as lack of humility, trustability and warned;

"Power does not change people; power reveals who you are.."

Also, this is an explicit characterization of Gaston Browne's poor administration and misuse of public office, pointing to those hostile to truth and attracted to flattery. Moreover, Lumumba posited and commented on the following;

"What must one do when they get into public office? Humility must never abandon you."

These principles are rejected by many who seek public office, becoming Little Hitlers and disregarding the rights of people for power.

Browne's power lust going into the general election on June 12, 2014, saw Browne victorious. Before this mandate, ALP launched a subversive strategy against the UPP of fire, bombings, and everything conceived by upholders of lawlessness. 

In alliance, a cliquish group overtly communicated the upsurge of crime, linking it to the UPP government's socioeconomic issues during a Takingsides Google group debate on December 15, 2007. 

https://groups.google.com/g/takingsides/c/jUa_Ve3gI9g

Seven years later, this Syrian-Lebanese group and other traditional partisans were incredibly silent on such matters of national concern until one of their own became a fatality two years later on April 23, 2016. The killing was that of Mazem Daher, a Syrian businessman. (The second defendant in the 2016 killing of a Syrian businessman gets 12 years by Latrishka Thomas-.Antigua Observer July 18, 2022)

Secondarily, there is a depth of ignorance of the many crimes committed against local people. Pay attention to the community and government response to the gruesome killing of 25-year-old Syrian businessman Roudi Shmali on Monday, May 22, 2023, as the nation mourns the first homicide of the year. 

The 16-year-old youth killer was swiftly remanded to prison for that murder compared to the brutal death of  Bruce Greenaway on April 9, 2020, and Nigel Christian's unresolved homicide on July 10, 2020.  Murderers walking free because of insufficient evidence is hogwash, a tragic consequence based on elitism and a travesty of justice suffered by the less fortunate. 

There was no condolence coming from the ALP government; however, on August 6, 2021, then-Chair of Caricom prime minister Gaston Browne condemned the physical assault upon the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, calling it deplorable and shameful. In contrast, silence prevails in the deaths of Christian, Greenaway, and the brutal attack on Benjamin.

We are now pallbearers of ALP government indifference and prevailing political polarization.

Conclusively, the Syrian community's call for action coincided with the ready availability of three government ministers to immediately address '..the increasing threat to local businesses' at the inevitable meeting on Tuesday, May 23, 2023.

Instantaneously following this meeting, devious Attorney General and National Security Minister Steadroy 'Hogzilla' Benjamin declared war on crime. On Thursday, May 25, a protest March was authorized, and the turnout was substantial.

Where were the Syrian community's outrage and the government's swiftness when black people were murdered, raped, robbed, and called black monkeys?

These bought and sold politicians become concerned about murders of this select group who expect favoring of the word local to be a byword for inclusion. 

However, failing to realize the dilemma of truly established ancestral businesses and not empathizing with the community is structural racism.

An excerpt from a Maya Angelou poem entitled On The Pulse of The Morning is relevant to Benjamin's ALP government's contemptible social injustices and lies. Time for the masses to quash that unfairness:

History, despite its 

wrenching pain,

It cannot be unlived, but if faced. 

 With courage, need not be lived again 

Mutually, Upton St. Claire concludes, 

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."

The genesis of these influences by benefits in kind engenders today's dilemma of ALP's farcical leadership of injustice. Crime is not a vice of the few but purveyors of those dominating. 

Coming after the ALP's two five-year election loss to the UPP beginning March 23, 2004, and the subsequent Gaston Browne-Asot Michael fallout revealed a planned destabilization agenda of the former UPP government. 

This procedure was given priority by wicked sponsors within the inner sanctum of the ALP that now shamelessly espouse a democratic state and are reliving their most haunting horror! 

Between the election of June 12, 2014, and March 21, 2018, the ALP led by Gaston Browne won both with 14 and 15 seats. 

The other instance of the ALP winning 15 seats was in 1989. Nonetheless, in 1989, Freedom House agreed with the opposition's United National Democratic Party ( UNDP) analysis: The opposition has charged over the years that the ALP exerts undue influence over the nominally independent electoral supervisor and uses bribery and intimidation at polling time, such as the March 9, 1999, election. (Freedom in the World Political Rights & Civil Liberties 1989-1990)

In that election, ALP 'won' 12, UPP 4, and BPM 1, with ALP 52.6% and UPP 44.8% of the 33,091 total votes.

This time, the Commonwealth Observers' analysis of that election condemned it as not free and fair but rife with irregularities.

Finally, Bird agreed to UPP's opposition leader Baldwin Spencer's relentless demand for transparency in the electoral process. In this instance, Bird showed some decency and invited a Commonwealth expert team in 2000 to implement guidelines for the 2004 election. 

A two-member team arrived on the island and implemented policies to effect transparency and accountability of a free and fair election that turned out beneficial. The ALP got voted out of power.

However, with the ALP regaining power in 2014, proof of election dishonesty appears again. 

That persuasion of bribery, intimidation, lack of transparency, and no accountability exists now, continuing through all processes of ALP maintaining power.

Yet again, there were looming changes on the horizon, and voters' dissatisfaction with ALP's subordinated parliamentary government to the divine right of King Charles III, Monarch and Head of State, ALP contempt for social development and equity, and prevailing state capture by influence peddlers, and rising crimes were noticeable leading up to January 18, 2023, election. 

Voices call for people's Constitutional Power, ending treacherous leadership, monarchical subservience, vendetta-driven political culture, and modern neo-patrimonialism!

In retrospect, ALP's long history of failures: human rights abuse, misuse of public office, and sellout policy- of giving back people's land to the oppressors and business opportunities to descendants of enslavers. 

Today's voters reduced the ruling ALP majority of 15 Members of Parliament (MPs) to nine in 2023, a -40%, while the United Progressive Party (UPP) increased from one to six elected +500%, Barbuda Peoples Movement one, Independent one comprised the 17-Member Parliament and diminished Browne's certainty of ALP winning "..by a very large margin." 

However, the 2023 election was not without drama since ALP is protesting UPP St. Mary South elected candidate Kelvin 'Shugy' Simon's legitimacy because he was a public servant when nominated. 

Simon's candid response to this frustrating issue awaiting the Court's verdict decided upon a remarkable people-centered motion: "...to vacate the seat in Parliament so that a by-election can be held within 120 days as the law mandates." 

A by-election is scheduled on October 24, 2023, between UPP candidate Kelvin 'Shugy' Simon and ALP aspirant Dwayne George.

Without fail, Danny Faure, the Chair of the Commonwealth Observer Group and former President of Seychelles, was in Antigua and Barbuda to observe the election on January 18, 2023, and expressed the importance of voting and called on all citizens to exercise that franchise: 

"Casting a vote is a fundamental human right, and we hope the people of Antigua and Barbuda will exercise this right on Election Day." 

Not all did! St. Mary South voters must turnout on October 24, 2023, to effect changes- Vote Kelvin 'Shugy' Simon!