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

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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