
By D.Gisele Isaac
The hypocrisy is too much to bear now. Listening to the critics of the United Progressive Party (UPP) up to Sunday, during The Big Issues, I was forced to ask myself whether the national situation will ever be better, when some folks are so quick to strain at a gnat while they swallow a camel.
It appears that the biggest thing coming out of the St. Peter by-election last Tuesday is candidate George Wehner’s soldierly stand as the ballots were counted. To hear some tell it, his party sent him on a solo flight over enemy territory and then shut down all communication with the cockpit. What a crock!
Retired from army duty though he is, George Wehner remains a declared soldier, a military and militant personality. He went into the by-election a soldier and he came out of it in the same fashion. In every outing, in every interview, Wehner referred to his training, his thought processes, and his operations in military terms – including how he would behave on a “sniper mission” or in an “ambush” situation.
Those terms elicited great offense in some quarters, as the critics deliberately took them out of context. I heard the implications and the insinuations, and I was reminded of the incident, some years ago, when the Browne Administration, with the complicity of the Police brass, attempted to paint him as armed and dangerous, a weapons expert on the loose.
The persecution and prosecution arose out of a months-old advertisement for his radio programme, “In the Trenches,” which – as he explained on the Nation’s Station – was merely political satire, a theme in keeping with his military background. However, despite the promotion having aired – and threatened no one – in months, the political directorate decided to make it into what it was never was; and no less a person than the then police commissioner agreed to issue a “warning bulletin,” alerting the citizenry to the danger he supposedly posed, and calling on Wehner to surrender.
It was a farce. And if the intention had not been to have him shot on sight by some citizen allegedly defending himself, I might have laughed. But all discerning people realized that a target was being painted on the soldier’s back. Where was the outrage of these critics, then, when a manhunt was launched for this person who had done no wrong? Who, other than his UPP brethren, kept vigil outside Police Headquarters after he voluntarily “turned himself in” – though he was no common criminal – and was put in a mosquito-infested cell on the compound?
Only a seriously malicious person – or a fool – would believe that Wehner, all by himself, waged a brilliant, disturbing, and effective campaign in 21 days to capture virtually as many votes as the party’s last general-election foray into St. Peter. Only a willingly deluded person would believe that, because the soldier elected to “stand and be counted,” he had been abandoned. Only a volunteer blind and deaf smaddy would say they did not see and hear his colleagues – from the former prime minister and the former political leader to the current leader and deputy – on the hustings. Not to mention his colleague candidates and caretakers, seasoned and new.

I know some media outlets set out to photo-propagandize, but those on the ground saw and recognized supporters from the party’s 16 branches at the meetings and during the canvassing. And I also know they recognized that the team of white-clad workers on by-election day and night were, in fact, members and executives of the UPP.
So why the hypocrisy now? Why, now, the fake sympathy? Why, at this time, the insincere plaudits and commendations from folks who did not, at any other time, wish Wehner well?
What Wehner did was historic. No other candidate, for any party, at any time, had done it. You know what else was historic in St. Peter? He was a candidate that said, up front, “I’m not a bank or a banker,” and so he came bearing no gifts and offering no inducements for votes – only effective advocacy for the long-neglected residents of St. Peter. Where is the praise for that, ye critics? And where is the credit for the party and its leadership for selecting such a transparent candidate?
In the meantime, as his political opponents try to create a breach that never was, they have nothing to say about the real breaches that happened during the by-election.
The Antigua and Barbuda Electoral Commission (ABEC) had claimed that the “dirt” of the last general election – specifically, the boast that voters were transferred, as charity, into weak Labour seats, plus the allegation that hundreds of persons had been transferred by the late St. Peter MP into the constituency – would automatically be cleaned up. How? By virtue of “proof of address” being required for revalidation.
However, while the law-abiding dutifully took along their utility bill or bank statement to prove that, yes, we actually live in St. Peter, ABEC, on the eve of the by-election, took the decision NOT to require proof of address, after all, and to issue new cards on the strength of persons already being on the voters list.
And why, after the longstanding practice of parties’ mock stations not being allowed on the voting premises, were the dozens of brown-shirted Labour Party agents permitted to stand or sit outside every single voting station with their clipboards and lists to identify voters? And, why, yet again, did the picture list have almost three dozen more names on the picture list than the other List of Electors?
The double standard stinks, and it needs to be talked about and condemned, especially since, one, all transfers are effected at ABEC’s headquarters; two, specific objections to the 2023 voting lists were ignored by Commission staff; and, three, last Tuesday there was no attempt at all to address the brown-shirt brigade’s activities.
So I invite those who now claim to admire Captain Wehner’s stoicism, discipline, and statesmanship, and those who have been quick to accuse and condemn his party for allowing the soldier to do the soldierly thing, to call out ABEC in similar fashion.
I invite them, also, to pay attention to the other commission – the Boundaries Commission – as a slip of the chief of staff’s tongue has alerted us to which government ministers exactly will be pulling the strings of the “renamed” commissioners.
The manipulation and the hypocrisy must be stopped.
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Oh Man Cow…gwarn go siddung!
Thus woman is the epitome of a NARCISSIST!!!!
There is an old Mark Twain quote: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Giselle has just proved this. No where in this garbage does she address the fact that Whenner stood alone with no UPP support from his colleagues and the top brass of the UPP. No Pringle. No Giselle. No one.
So a pig with lipstick is still a pig.
She didn’t even show up on election night for the Ballot Counting!!! She and others left him out in the cold. Only his son was there for him
My brother !! You are so right, this cantankerous woman is always on the warpath, always looking for confrontation. What she is actually saying, is that Wehner is a soldier, so he can stand alone.
She hasn’t answered the question that is being asked, where were the others executive members to support him, where was her as Chairman of the UPP and where was Pringle as Leader of the UPP.
What she needs to understand, is that individuals are failing to support the UPP all because of her attitude, she needs to go and give others a chance.
She has failed with all her other organisations, such as OND, her pride and joy, POWER her professional organisation and the Movement, all died a premature death.
Her article both “keep Wehner out your hypocrisy” is a personal attack on someone I can bet you, that her article lost consciousness of its real objective and sounds vaguely baseless and lacking substance, trying to defend the indefensible.
She is almost singlehandedly responsible for the state of affairs in the UPP
Leave her alone!
Let she talk.
Many of you red cool aid drinkers are so delusional, it’s sad!
Thr prime minister and his cabal are living large and in charge,
And you till a throw up water, and can’t flush you toilet..
Ps. Antigua is a rich country but the people poor!
Why is that?
Antigua is a rich country but the people poor.
Hmm 😒
Continue to support labor.. useful idiots.😅
Gisele. Please give us a break. The rhetoric is no longer sweet or viable. Please remove the plank from your eyes. Do many lies are told by ya’ll, so ya’ll can no longer discern what’s right or wrong.
Take several seats please!
@Sandra Clarke it is the UPP Party that is really DELUSIONAL. The question is asked where was the leadership of the Party at the by-election count and every one of them talk about the members and leadership that attended the rallies. In politics perception is reality and the perception at the count is that the leadership abandoned Wehner. The question is about the count not the campaign rallies. The UPP leadership really seems to be dunce as hell and really needs a strategic thinker to advise them. Professor Harold is back and it seems as if not even he can help. Until the party realizes that the Chair is also a waste of time like the leader it will remain struggling.
@Political Observer
She said this morning that they all had to take a shift and hers was from 4PM to either 7 or 8. Then she went home.
Can you imagine that? The CHAIRMAN of the party took a shift on such an important event and went home when her shift was ended?
Can’t make up something like this.
The CHAIRMAN should have been ashamed to say that. Only shows that she is not the right person to be the chair of a political party . She should just be used to write press releases and Pringle’s speeches. People should therefore not be surprised the mess that the UPP finds itself in.
Another word salad from this pig with lipstick. Using large words to say absolutely nothing is a skill D Giselle has perfected. A bunch of jargon to overlook the question of the day, where was the UPP executive last Tuesday as Wehner stood alone sweating and bawling his eyes out?
Was she under the Dotsie two foot table, was Pringle babysitting his son, was Baldwin without a driver, was Harold teaching a class on “how to lose politically and still be called the best PM that never was”?
D Giselle WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU WHEN YOUR SACRIFICIAL LAMB WAS BEING LED TO THE SLAUGHTER?
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