NDC STRUGGLES TO GOVERN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GRENADA 000047 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV GJ SUBJECT: NDC STRUGGLES TO GOVERN ¶1. (U) The government of Grenada is finding that governing is hard compared to being a virtually powerless opposition. Party stalwarts have called for the National Democratic Congress to refocus on the basics and start performing in a coordinated fashion. The following are brief looks at events in Grenada in the early months of 2009 eight months after the National Democratic Congress won an eleven to four seat parliamentary majority with a little over 1800 votes on July 8, 2008. Sir Danny Vents ¶2. (SBU) Sir Daniel Williams retired in November 2008 after over thirteen years as Governor General (GG) of Grenada. When the NDC won the July 8, 2008 election, the new government got to pick `its' governor general and Sir Carlysle Glean was sworn in last November. However, instead of allowing Williams to step down and fade away with dignity as previous governors general have done, NDC stalwarts stepped up attacks on him and his tenure as head of state, threatening to investigate nearly every government action he signed off on. Following the same pattern the new government has used against all its perceived enemies, the attacks have been vicious and highly personal. They also distorted the constitutional and primarily ceremonial role of the GG. In a highly unusual response, Williams struck back in a February 26 press conference he called to respond to the most egregious accusations. The former GG alternated between lawyerly explanations of the role of the governor general in government affairs and indignant and pointed reaction to his attackers' reliance on innuendo to blacken his reputation. ¶3. (SBU) Initial public reaction to Williams' press conference was muted. Many Grenadians expressed shock and embarrassment that he would submit himself to such indignity. Journalists at the press conference were egged on by NDC supporters Grenada Today editor George Worme and lawyer/political gadfly Lloyd Noel; the questions were accusatory and the tone nasty. After multiple rebroadcasts of the press conference over the last few weeks, the expressions of shame, horror, or on the other side, satisfaction, have given way to anger at the reporters who were clearly gunning for the former GG. Commonly noted by post interlocutors was the lack of factual underpinning for the accusations combined with a deliberate misrepresentation by the questioners of the constitutional role of the GG. Williams appeared to have calculated correctly that sympathy, once people realized the thinness of the accusations, along with the venom with which they were delivered, would be on his side. Police Officers Quietly Reinstated ¶4. (SBU) Several Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) officers who were sent off on indefinite leave early in the new NDC government's tenure in the fall of 2008, have been quietly reinstated to positions of responsibility. All the allegations of wrong doing have been dropped. According to one officer, Commissioner of Police (COP) James Clarkson declined to make the vindication public, preferring to simply "let it go". One officer Charge d'Affaires spoke with expressed anger over the COP's refusal to speak out after his very public savaging of the officers' characters, but said he would do his job to the best of his ability. Indefinite leave is often used to ease public service workers out of the government and is understood by Grenadians to be the end of someone's career. Land Grab in Carriacou ¶5. (SBU) Senator George Prime, Minister for Carriacou and Petit Martinique Affairs, announced in late February that there were people in Carriacou illegally living on state land, accused the former NNP government of handing it out willy nilly, and declared that the residents must all immediately move off that land until the issue was resolved. Most of the people in question had been given the land by the government nearly ten years ago and had built homes and businesses on it. The majority were paying the required rents, though a very small number had never bothered. Public reaction to the announcement was swift and negative. The decree would have impacted 20 - 30 people, mostly poor or near poor. Prime was met with catcalls and boos at his town hall meeting announcing the review. The government has been scrambling ever since to find a solution that would not force the group off the land for an unknown period of time. The residents feared - probably rightly - that once they vacated the properties, they would have a hard time getting them back. ¶6. (SBU) By March 4, the government had announced the creation of a panel of three experts to review all titles to the land in question and figure out who really was in violation of the law (rumored to be no more than two or three people). The panel met with disgruntled residents who greeted many of their statements with disbelieving hooting. Comment GRENADA 00000047 002 OF 002 ¶7. (SBU) Governing is hard work, as the NDC is finding out after being in opposition for thirteen years. They used to be able to take potshots at the New National Party (NNP) ruling party without political consequences, including walking out of parliament en masse at every perceived slight. In the giddy aftermath of winning, the party forgot that many voters did not support the NDC with their votes so much as deny the NNP a fourth term in office. Having reneged on most of its campaign promises - for good reason as Grenada's public debt of 107 percent to gross domestic product means there is virtually no room in the budget for new programs without either increasing the debt or finding grant assistance - the party also lost much goodwill in its first few months in office by harassing public service workers and for tossing many of the poor and near poor off public assistance programs, all for apparently partisan reasons. Prime Minister Tillman Thomas could still turn things around if the party finally focuses on governing and stops trying to settling scores. The 64 million dollar question is whether, and how quickly, he can bring his troops into line to deliver the cleaner and more transparent government he promised last summer. End comment. MCISAAC