Gangrene in the Opposition: The UPP’s Terminal Unravelingz
By E.P. Chet Greene
A political party’s most fundamental duty, especially in a democracy as intimate as Antigua and Barbuda, is to present the electorate with a credible alternative. It must be a vessel for hope, a repository of ideas and a testament to political maturity. The United Progressive Party (UPP) today is none of these things. Instead, it is a cavern of echoing egos, a case study in decay, where the leadership battle between Harold Lovell and Jamale Pringle is not a healthy contest of vision, but the death rattle of a terminal patient.
The context of this battle is not policy but raw unvarnished power. Harold Lovell, the former political leader, now seeks to topple the man who succeeded him, Jamale Pringle. This is not a resurgence of strategic thinking; it is the twitch of a political corpse, a desperate grab for control of a vessel taking on water. The lines are drawn with visceral clarity, not between ideologies, for none are discernibly presented but rather between personalities and their devoted factions.
Fueling this conflagration with gasoline has been the toxic and divisive role of the party’s chairman, Giselle Isaac. Far from being an impartial arbiter or a unifying figure, the chairmanship has become a weapon, a platform from which discord is amplified and battle lines are hardened. Under this stewardship, internal governance has dissolved into public spectacle, where procedure is bent to will and the party’s platform is reduced to a stage for settling personal scores. This is not leadership; it is arson.
What emerges is a picture of utter hopelessness. The UPP is bereft of the political maturity to reconcile, the vision to inspire, or the substantive policies needed to advance Antigua and Barbuda as a modern democracy. The nation faces profound challenges; economic diversification, climate resilience, geo political sneezes and yet the opposition’s sole export is noise. The debate is one of form over substance, ego over ability. Who holds the title matters infinitely more than what they would do with it.
This is an uncaring attitude, a profound lack of patriotism that abdicates their responsibility to the socio-political and economic interests of the nation they seek to lead.
This infighting is no longer a simple wound; it is gangrene. It is a necrotizing disease that has spread from a limb to the core. When gangrene sets in, palliative care is a fantasy. Band-aids and well wishes are prescriptions for a slow, septic death. The only remedy is surgical: amputation. The recurring conflict, the ingrained culture of self-destruction and the addiction to public fratricide are now part of the UPP’s DNA. They cannot be reformed; they must be removed from the body politic.
The people of Antigua and Barbuda deserve more than this circus of the perpetually aggrieved. They deserve an opposition that is focused on national development, not niche vendettas; on the future of the country, not the fortunes of a few. The UPP has proven itself institutionally incapable of being that vehicle.
I’m no Nostradamus, Ezekiel or Daniel but at any rate some endings are too glaring to prophesize; they simply are. The UPP, as we say in local parlance, ‘done.’ Like Humpty Dumpty in nursery rhyme stories, no kings horses nor kings men can put the UPP back together again. Its great fall from grace is complete and the shards are too many, too jagged and held by too many bitter hands to ever be reassembled.
We must therefore, prescriptively, condemn this iteration to oblivion. Not with malice but with the sober necessity one applies to removing a hazard. From the ashes of this useless bunch, there must arise a demand from civil society for the rebirth of a meaningful, development-centered opposition. A new formation, untainted by this poisonous history, built on substance and unity of national purpose.
Over time, such an entity could emerge as the credible political force our democracy and development so desperately needs.
The alternative of endlessly hoping that the UPP will change is to accept gangrene as a normal condition. And that is a betrayal of Antigua and Barbuda’s future.
I now await the very predictable deflection into personal attacks, which will only serve to underscore my central argument: the party has devolved into a forum for personal grievance, envy and power at any cost over national service. Attacking the messenger, rather than confronting the substantive critique of their profound political irrelevance, is the very behavior that condemns them to the margins of Antigua and Barbuda’s contemporary political reality.
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That could not have been written by E P Chet Greene.
Someone is forging his name.
We know that a common thing within the walls if the ALP.
Let us be reminded that forging signature caused the death of a custom officer and an attempt on the life of another.
More than that…….
Is that the man who Gaston told if ge tried to raise his head he would cut it off and he went handstanding?
Have we heard anything from him since?
Is that gangrene of is it “be-head-gren”?
Further Gaston didn’t just attack him alone.
He hit him where it hurt most.
He attacked his wife.
He yanked her from Canada like a woman yanking her panty from her ass.
Is that an opposition gangrene or a labour “chop Greene”?
Recently, government negotiated the recruitment of Ghanaian nurses.
Was Chet Greene involved as minister of foreign affairs or was gangrene or “cut greene”?
So Chet stop trying to play into Gaston’s good books.
Today he is out of the island on a paid vacation with his wife.
Why isn’t the minister of Foreign affairs with him?
Gaston fears the gangrene and greene gangrene so badly that not even cabinet meeting is held in his absence.
So, MP Greene, Gaston is trying to get rid of both the gangrene and the Greene gang.
Hence your article is simply an attempt to gain attention and good grades from Gaston.
He trusts Shuggy more than he trusts you.
A year or so ago, I highlighted that this ABLP administration would make a concerted effort to destabilise the main opposition to undermine our democratic process, and then go on to try andbreplace it with a more authoritarian one, with Gaston Browne – and his family – at the autocratic head of it.
Now look where we are today, with my prediction now seem to be happening. Very troubling!
The political knives have been sharpened with hit piece opinion pieces and articles denigrating the main opposition party members – I expect this to continue until a snap General Election is called by Browne.
The ABLP are not as ruthless as the current US administration, but they very damn close to it. In fact, politics and the democracy across the globe is spiralling to a new disturbing low.
This was expected by many of us, but not to the excess that we are witnessing today; and it looks like getting worse for the foreseeable future.
Chet Greene can play around with semantics, but he’s keeping his leadership cards and credentials close to his chest, and awaiting the right time to pounce.
This is not rocket science to many…
In as much as I disagree with what is written it’s the kind of article that could not be written by a character like Gaston Browne. Chet Greene is the person who should be leading the ABLP. If this was written by Gaston he would have gone deep down in the gutter as is his custom
Chet Greene is all up in UPP business and not observing how Gaston Browne is marking him like when a full back is marking a center forward. UPP is not preventing you from getting the Leadership it’s Gsston preserving it for Maria since he has relegated you to his football
We dare you…
So true @Visionary; and using your own footballing analogy even further.
So when Gaston Browne dribble the football ⚽️ through Chet Greene bow legs making him look a fool, and then flicking the ball up in the air to scissor kick the ball into the roof of the net. Chetty will turn round and say, “ah how Gassston turn me so fool fool?”. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Political satire, don’t you just love it?
Chet you have used the perfect word gangrene! If the ABLP ever call a National convention and you dare challenge Gaston for the leadership of the ABLP, you’re the one who may physically end up with gangrene of the brains as the ABLP CABAL, GANG up against you GREENE.
Be mindful of spitting in the air. So keep spitting and spinning in the same spot but you better not look up.
I honestly believe Chet has ambition of becoming the leader of ABLP but is depending on Divine intervention, but as the saying goes God help those who help themselves. There is also another saying. Cowards die many times before their death
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