The liberation from hypocrisy

The morning after the election George Grant said he was scratching his head; wondering what just happened.

  He was one of quite a few people of that ilk who have been living for a while now in a land of denial.

  To fully understand the shellacking that the National Democratic Congress got on February 19, you can easily track the timelines of my blogs available online from 2010 forward. (So I am not just Monday morning quarter-backing here).

  I was reviewing them overnight -- and it refreshed my memories, blow by blow of how the seeds of this demise were being sown.

  When I warned them back them, I was summarily dismissed as "a threat to the nation" or as a badass bitter man, angry about some crumbs that I was supposedly so cheap to be needing to gather from the foot of their rotten tables.

  The economy was bad, and the leadership was never inspiring -- and on those two counts alone the NDC was always facing a one term.

  But even so, they were - supposedly -- always with a chance of getting a few seats here and there.

  What pushed it over the edged was what I called the R factor  - the rebels and the rebellion.

  The lavalass that washed away the NDC came because in the end there was a massive national rebellion against the leadership of Tillman Thomas and Nazim Burke.

  If their egos do not get in the way, they should now make way for a brand of new leadership. If not -- and here is another bold prediction -- the NDC will soon be buried alongside George Brizan in St Pauls.

  The dipping of the fingers in ink after voting was a poignant signal of "giving them the finger" by the large majority of people in Grenada.

  There have been countless people I met who said they voted not so much for NNP, but against the reconstituted NDC because either "them fellas too dam bad" or "them fellas too ungrateful" or "them fellas aint care about anybody."

   A week ago, in the pages of the Today newspaper -- not known for any astute serious political analysis but childish meanderings -- they were predicting that the election would have meant the end of the so-called rebels -- those expelled last year from the party.

  They even said "the myth" that the party needed their organizing excellence and their messaging nous and fundraising power would be proven to be just hype.

  Oh, how they were wrong.

  And oh, how I always knew they were wrong.

  Other than the fact that NNP won massively, and that returning Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell has a unique opportunity to finally shape his final legacy, the other big winners this past week were "the rebels".

  In the end of the day they were the effective leaders of the on-the-ground insurgency that swept away NDC for good.

  NNP would have won without their efforts, but NDC would have not been obliterated.

  Once they hit the ground, NDC was always toast.

  Which brings me to one of the most poignant comments I heard during the campaign -- when one former activist of the NDC in Tivoli said -- what the party did last September was not just expel ten key members -- but effectively expelled the people.

  And so there was that other factor -- revenge.

  A whole lot of people voted to get their revenge. They voted because they came to hate what both Thomas and Burke came to represent.

  And until now, I thought revenge was a bad thing. No more. It is an act to exorcise the demons of insensitivity and inaction; of ungratefulness and unfeeling. It helped a lot of people to liberate themselves from the suffocating spirit of political hypocrisy and contradictions.

  As much as this was a vote for betterment; this was also a vote for political fairness and reasonableness.

  The same people who gave political advice to Tillman Thomas and Nazim Burke -- those who write the five year Stonecrusher syndicate -- got it wrong -- again!

  After the vote, "the rebels" now have more political relevance than the choir.

  People ask if I am not worried that there is no opposition. No I am not.

   The people decided that is what they wanted. NDC acted in  a way to make the scenario palatable and possible.

     In that bitter, vicious, restless heartbreaking summer of 2010, I had pleaded and cautioned Glen Noel and Willie Joseph -- that they  will have no path to a national victory unless they make peace and reason.

  Back then I could see the golden dreams of July 2008 slipping away. I predicted that unless there is a change of course and attitude, annihilation will come.

  The NDC's biggest achilles heel was their arrogance -- borne out of action such as the suspension of parliament, and the declaration that "nobody will cheat me of my time."

  The architects of that disconnect are the ones who would have woken up seriously and genuinely surprised on Wednesday morning.

  For me, it was no breaking news. It was simply, a long time coming!

PS: Comrades Chris, Glen, Faye, Vincent et cet -- for yet another election cycle; I was right again.

PS2: For the same comrades, just a reminder. Political strategy is not about dealing with the best case scenario, but building a worst case scenario and working to change it as if your life depended on it.

PS3: When you are an incumbent, it's not enough to peddle fear.