Well, well, well.
Who would have believed that after just one term out of office, Dr Kenny Anthony’s St Lucia Labour Party would come storming back into government in last week’s general election, five years after it was blown out by Stephenson King’s United Workers’ Party?
I am no political commentator, so I leave the diagnosis to people like Rickey Singh, Albert Brandford and even Lowdown Hoad, who in recent days has become rather serious in his writings, leaving me all but alone to make some journalistic sport when the weekend comes.
But surely, that unexpected result in St Lucia must have sent shivers up and down the spines of quite a few people in our own political system.
It’s not so much a question about whether the team is still strong enough to ably defend itself when its own test comes a few months down the road but rather, if the captain has the necessary skills to lead it to victory again.
Rumours were rife all around Barbados about a palace coup being contemplated to ensure that a captain of similar skills and personality to the one who had to be untimely replaced, is in place to give spectators a sense that both teams are playing on a level playing field.
A lot of people believe I am privy to everything that happens in Barbados and some who I don’t even know call me on a daily basis wanting to know if things they hear are true or not.
Well, it was my turn Friday morning to call a friend who is truly in the know about political matters, to ask if something I had just heard was true or not. I had received a call, not from somebody in Barbados but from somebody all the way in Trinidad, telling me that they had information that 14 people were at that very moment heading to Government House to present a petition to the acting Governor General for a change in the captaincy of the team.
Not true, my friend told me. He then went on to remind me that they would need at least 16 people to make the trip in order to achieve such a thing. But, he also reminded me of the old saying that where there is smoke there is also fire, and hinted that a lot of smoke has been in the air recently.
I was about to call back the man in Trinidad to let him know that the information he had was wrong when my phone started to ring again. The person on the line this time had also just heard something and wanted to know if I knew if it was true. He heard that somebody had done a secret poll in Barbados and the results showed that if the coming test was brought forward to today, that the defending team with its current captain would get beaten worse than the West Indies in that recent match against India.
Fortunately, there’s no more need for concern because shortly afterwards the captain himself brushed aside all the rumours during a Press conference and he assured us all that there is no dissatisfaction among the members of his team.
So don’t worry, be happy.
Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm. Email algilkes@gmail.com