By:Stevenson Manners
So, we have arrived at Thursday, November 30 – and the Ham Election is here.
Exactly one month after the self-proclaimed smoothest leadership transition in the history of mankind, Joshua has twisted Moses’ hand to “ring the bell”, and announce an election for Monday, Dec. 18, exactly one week shy of Christmas Day.
On the day that the ferocious 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season officially comes to an end, Hurri-cane Mark has created a storm of his own. At a time when the nation should otherwise have been thanking Almighty God for sparing St. Kitts and Nevis from the ravages of hurricanes Irma and Maria as experienced by our sister islands of Barbuda, BVI, Dominica, St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John and Puerto Rico, The Sherriff has marred the peace and goodwill of Christmas and the revelry of Carnival with the acrimony normally attendant on electioneering.
And it is ‘all in’ the name of “me becoming the first premier from St. John’s before I am 50, in fact, before Christmas.”
For this campaign he could quite appropriately use the tagline – “Selfishness and Greed.”
The Christian Council, the Evangelical Association and all men of the cloth and of goodwill, should vociferously be trumpeting their outrage in The Town Square. It can’t be that they are “All in”.
Since the Mandela/Mbeki, PJ Patterson/Portia Simpson-Miller-like transition of Sunday, October 29, here are two things Nevisians could reasonably have expected.
(1) That the day after, (Monday, October 30) – a session of the Nevis Island Assembly was convened to consecrate the legacy of the 30-year tenure of his predecessor, Premier Moses Amory to Nevis politics. He, Joshua Brantley would lead the tributes to the man, who taught him so much and so graciously passed the baton while he is still popular and in the pink of health. The Opposition members would also be given cause to regale our great leader. And Nevisians would file to the hallowed walls of the Assembly in their thousands, spilling on to the Assembly’s lawn and on to the Samuel Hunkins Highway to witness the once-in-a lifetime occasion. The Assembly is starved after all, for pomp and pageantry, because it has only had “bums on seat” twice in 2017.
He didn’t oblige.
(2) That today, Nov. 30, exactly one year on from the 2017 Budget session, that the 2018 Draft Estimates and Appropriation Bill be laid in the Assembly, so that Nevisians can hear him account for his stewardship, hear of his glorious plans, and how they will be funded, because something truly good is happening in Nevis. The country would hear how the $135 million in Federal subsidies have been spent, and whether the windfall has hauled Nevis back from the ‘fiscal cliff’.
He didn’t oblige.
Instead, given a closed window coupled with his “insatiable quest for power” Mark Brantley has put on full display his “all of self and none of thee” persona.
On this occasion, PEOPLE DO NOT MATTER MORE, when the interests of The Sherriff are to be served.
Here’s what Nevisians will hear in the coming days.
(a) That at today’s meeting of the Federal Cabinet, I fought tooth and nail to secure a double salary for civil servants, and a quadruple for myself and Moses.
(b) That the much publicized ‘hams’ have arrived, and are in refrigerated containers at the Long Point Port, and there will be one in every home for Christmas.
(c) And finally, who said “Let the Guns Blaze.”
There will be little else.
But this:
“People of St. John’s, this time you ain’t voting for me to be no deputy, you know. This time you voting for me to become the first premier from the great parish of St. John’s.”
Though born elsewhere in Nevis, like him, our revered national hero – his mentor – Dr. Simeon Daniel lived in Brazier’s Estate for decades, and Joshua still resides in Fig Tree Lane.
Trump has introduced us to the theory of ALTERNATIVE FACTS.
And that my friends, is the Gospel according to Hurri-cane Mark.
Vote for me, even though I am an Emperor without clothes. I want it now.
Not even the Premier and Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs could restrain himself.
Stay tuned, for the unfolding saga of “The Ham Election.”