OPINION: Building A Dictatorship: One Senator At A Time

     BUILDING A DICTATORSHIP: ONE SENATOR AT A TIME

The present die-hard Labourites fondly remember and are desperately trying to cling to the purity of the ALP which was forged by the father, Papa VC Bird.

 But just as the UPPites are confused by the new ethos in their party where they see the senior leadership acquiesce to the tyrannical rule of their Chairman, so it is that the comrades, dyed in the red blood of Birdism, are confused as to what they are now being asked to accept. And this acceptance is that their current leader who saw off the last of the Bird leaders, is sparing no cost or deception to rid the party of all lingering vestiges of Birdism.

His strategy is to keep the last strains of Birdism as happy as he can make them by appealing to their greed and lust for power, as he infuses into the party a new phalanx of untried youths which will be forever faithful to him, hang on to his every word, propagate his doctrines, and never question his doings and sayings.

So bold and dedicated is he to this one-man, strongman rule that he is reaching across the aisle, albeit successfully, and waving the red flag to the “come all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you what your side cannot”. And ten years in the wilderness where their leaders stored up not one ounce of corn to see them through the barren times, have made them susceptible to the call of the red heart and flame flag.

It is obvious that the Red Leader is fashioning his own system in the ALP, and it looks like it is one based on easing out the Birdites and pulling in the Gastonites. Too many of these young persons who are moving into the Parliament like hot, fresh bread from the baker’s oven, do not concern themselves with the history of politics and civil rights in Antigua. They see a pot of gold, influence and power right before them, and they are willing to barter their souls, their conscience and their integrity to get theirs.

Gaston Browne knows that his 28 years can only come through the sycophants he has wooed, and especially those young Senators whom he is using the public purse to attract and to keep them loyal to him.

So this is where we are. In this the season of paying homage to a King, a dictator who is beginning to imagine himself as King is being forged using the older comrades who are compromised and cannot oppose him, in fact who spend a lot of the airways pledging undying loyalty to him; forged through the ‘jumpers’ who themselves must act even more rabid than the Gastonites in defending Gaston Browne; and especially the young Senators whom he shows how they can achieve it all by prostrating themselves at his feet.

Gaston Browne is not the only practitioner of this brand of dictatorship in our present times. But he and the others need to remember what happened to the last guy whose only prayer was for wealth and power and to have it more abundantly.

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