Posted March 11th. 2009

On March 12 Antiguans go to the polls in what has emerged as another important election. Coming in the middle of a Caribbean-wide financial crisis--part of which has its origins in Antigua--this electoral contest raises once more the old debate over the nature of our post-colonial political economy. Our leaders' almost complete embrace of capitalist globalization with its blind faith in the market has led to some degree of macro economic growth. But the price has been enormous. In the process our export-oriented mono-culture economies inherited at independence have become much more vulnerable to the vagaries of the global market.

We have moved from one mono-culture to another mono-culture. The dependence on tourism or bananas or bauxite or petroleum or offshore banking, all of which depend heavily on the whims and fancies of the global north, has not solved our chronic problems. Further, ownership of those industries is dominated by foreign interests, which invest little to nothing in the welfare and futures of the Caribbean peoples. Instead, they use their financial clout to acquire real estate and in the process make it almost impossible for Caribbean nationals to buy property in their own countries. The outcome of this economic recolonization can be seen in the progressive loss of a once formidable Caribbean nationalism, a spiraling social disintegration and a healthy cynicism about governance and politics.

Perhaps Antigua epitomizes the extreme of this Caribbean catastrophe. Almost totally dependent on tourism and some offshore banking, it has earned the reputation as the place to "do business" in the Caribbean. The Stanford saga bears this out. If the Bird dynasty, which ran the government for all but ten years since self-rule came to Antigua, entrenched the culture of corruption neither the George Walters PLM government 1971-76 nor the current Baldwin Spencer UPP government has done anything to uproot it.

The Spencer government came to power in 2004 with much goodwill and expectation. While it did not gain a landslide in the popular votes, it did the almost impossible--it defeated a party that had been in power for twenty eight years. The ALP during those years developed the most formidable political machine in the history of the post colonial Caribbean. The UPP, a coalition of progressive and labor forces, managed to tap the frustrations of enough older voters and paint the ALP as the mother of corruption politics to a younger generation that was not as dependent on the clientelism of the Birds.

But while its five years in office have not been marked by the political spitefulness of the ALP regime, it has not been able to use the opening of 2004 to enlarge the space for progressive transformation of politics and society in Antigua. True, much of this has little to do with direct policies of the government and more to do with the objective realities of Antiguan and Caribbean politics. Because a regime takes on a life of its own over time, incoming governments spend their first term transitioning from the old regime. During this time they are more often than not forced to manage the business of the old regime. For example, the ALP left Stanford with the UPP, which had little choice but to play ball with him. In the end Stanford became the UPP's problem.

In the final analysis then the Antiguan electorate, like those in other Caribbean countries have little choice on March 12. There is no ideological difference between the two parties. Each has made the case that it will manage foreign capital better than the other and will guarantee the people of Antigua a few more trickles. Both Baldwin Spencer and Lester Bird have critiqued the Westminster model of winner- take-all and have pointed to its limitations in forging national consensus and development. But neither has done anything to promote a more inclusive governance.

In a 33%/33%/34% electorate the UPP should get the 34% with the other two blocs going to the ALP and those who decide not to vote. The UPP has the power of incumbency, which Caribbean ruling parties are adept at exploiting at election time. In the end its return to power will not be the result of any extraordinary achievement, but the inability of the opposition to convince enough of the UPP soft vote to go with the ALP. Should the ALP pull it off it would have benefitted greatly from a combination of the Stanford debacle and the short memory of some in the electorate.

David Hinds lectures in Caribbean and African Diaspora Studies at Arizona State University in the USA. His writings on Politics in Guyana and the Caribbean can be found on his GuyanaCaribbeanPolitics.com website.