UPP Executive must reform the Party’s voting process.
Now that the Convention is over, I want to congratulate Political Leader, Jamale Pringle and his Executive. They face many challenges ahead and it is incumbent upon them to begin to restructure the Party to make it stronger and more viable going forward.
Which brings me to the Party’s voting process on Sunday 21st April. I was disgusted with the utter chaos and lack of organization that characterized the voting process. There were some Party officials openly campaigning, crowding around polling boxes and overall unprofessional conduct.
But I was not prepared for the photos from the voting floor that were circulated. The place looked like a crazy house. Even though I was in the room, the bird’s eye view of the voting process revealed more madness than I had realized. The scene looked like we were running a relay but no one was running in their lane. It was utter confusion.
Pringle and the Executive should not take comfort in a win that was aided by this level of chaos and disorganization. We must move quickly to address these issues by doing an in-depth assessment to come up with ways to overhaul the Party’s electoral process. If we fail to address this pressing issue it will only lead to further weakening of the Party.
I hope that the UPP Executive also recognizes that there is a significant gap to be closed before we are ready to govern. Just the way that things were handled last Sunday suggests that as an organization, the UPP has to do some major restructuring and development. Chaos must be replaced by coordination to achieve collective success.
I really do hope that the Executive finds a way to transform the Party’s disjointed efforts into a synchronized and productive team.
Sincerely,
UPP Delegate
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This article is criticizing constructively and taking note of the issues that must be dealt with to improve the Party. The Party’s aim is to form the Government and if that is so, there are matters that must be addressed.
It is important that part of the way forward is conducting a post mortem of the process and ensuring that these improvements are done before the next election. This will only make our political process stronger.
You are not a delegate. It is just he say she say you are reporting. You are an ALP operative!
And how about the ABLP’S voting process whilst we are at it? Don’t make me laugh! Heheheeee 😂😂😂
At least the UPP’S is valid, clear and transparent.
Heheheeee 😂😂😂
Whatever Gaston may have done in the Convention against Lester, at least they emerged with a leader that had more national support and clear capacity to win the 2014 elections.
And is that going to be the UPP leadership’s response to tolerating confusion? “ALP is worse, so it’s ok” When has that kind of argument ever worked in Antigua, where ALP has always been unfairly held to a lower standard?
Think critically for a second. The ALP toolbox is different from the UPP’s. They don’t need to do things “properly” in order to win. They work the ground, push their propaganda and heavily use money politics.
The underfunded UPP on the other hand actually requires some measure of unity, more leadership competence (to make up for having a smaller base and a funding disadvantage) and the belief that what takes place internally is actually fair, so everyone can work together.
Anyone who lives in Antigua and has friends in political circles knows that plenty madness took place that Sunday. Look at the result! A leader emerged who instantly triggered a tidal wave of shock and resignation across the nation, and that includes many UPP members who lamented on Facebook, Whatsapp and everywhere else that Gaston got exactly what he wanted so UPP dead.
Who in their right mind wants to hit the campaign trail having to defend the capacity of their leader to run the country? Fairly or not, there are many voters who can give you a laundry list of Gaston’s issues, yet they will still say Pringle is a write off. That’s politics. Since many voters UPP needs to win over share that view, the outcome of next election could already have been decided. What a mess!
Let’s see how this all plays out. The voting process is now the least of UPP’s problems.
I’m totally in agreement with what you’ve said in your very first paragraph (because I was a ABLP supporter in 2014); but surely @ Leadership Matters, even you must realise that 10 years of Gaston Browne not being challenged in his own party isn’t good for our democratic process or the country.
HE’S GONE STALE. PERIOD!
Here’s another example. In the UK, in the last 10 years the current government has had 4-5 different Prime Minister’s.
Why can’t the ABLP Members at least have put someone up to challenge him within the last decade to ‘freshen’ things up a bit?
If he won, then fine, but he will not let anyone even challenge or replace him.
THAT IN ITS SELF IS RATHER SUSPECT!
Would you have made the same comments if the outcome were different?
At the best of times political competition will generate some level of emotion, disorder and confusion. The challenge is to manage such an environment carefully and with sensitivity to ensure the true will of the party membership prevails. After the democratic exercise, as prescribed by the party constitution is over, it’s important and sensible, if not mandatory, for the party as a collective to lock arms and minds in preparation for the greater and more transcendental struggles ahead, especially when the adversary is a criminal, mafia organization like the ABLP with its demented leader.
There may be a problem in the UPP in that many of its current elected leaders (parliamentarians) are inexperienced political operators and new members of political organization whose zeal for personal power and cavalier approach to the rules and norms as laid down in party documents and cultivated thru party traditions and culture, may render them dysfunctional and divisive going forward. In that case the UPP and its duly elected leader will have a mountainous struggle ahead as they work to become the instrument of choice to lead Antigua and Barbuda out of the deep pit of destruction, poverty and suffering that the incumbent government with its ignorant venal corrupt leader has cast us into.
May God and Jamale Pringle help us all!
You are very right.
The party should lock arms and minds. Should.
Unfortunately there is currently a campaign to cleanse the organisation and purge those who dared to think differently to those who believe they own the UPP.
It is sad that a party which is more democratic than the ALP can now have top Pringle advisors targeting and defaming members, from MPs on down, just because they used their freedom of choice in an internal election to support candidates other than Jamale Pringle and Gisele Isaac.
If you happen to cross paths with Jamale Pringle, please share your wise advice with him. It is political suicide for a leader who the majority of the UPP base and independent voters have low confidence in to pursue this political cleansing or allow his people to do it on his behalf. Not even a leader who was widely regarded to be competent could withstand the fallout from such an idiotic state of affairs and hope to win a general election.
Party unity is strength and public support is strength. Jamale Pringle is delusional if he thinks he can defeat Gaston without both. Unless he has a Yida to give him $14 million dollars for the next campaign he better wheel and come again, and focus on unity and improving the public’s view on his capacity.
Time to take the bull by the horn!
The letter gives constructive criticism. Even with all the support and goodwill, any Party that wants to win need to organise itself. I hope that becomes a part of the UPP strategy. The default defense is to shoot the messenger but anyone who was in the room at the Convention know that it was not a good look. There is much room for improvement.
This U.P.P. Delegate sounds like a member who is supportive of the U.P.P. Members of Parliament who have decided NOT to accept that Pringle have won and is the duly elected Political Leader of the U.P.P.
I have news for this delegate and his or her likes, GET USE TO IT BECAUSE PRINGLE WILL BE LEADER FOR A LONG TIME COMING.
The U.P.P. Members of Parliament who cannot or will not accept the decision of the majority of delegates can feel free to resign. Just resign and go. Are you a mash up are we party and are we know who are you be.
How sad. Another “UPP supporter” repeating the propaganda put out by the UPP lawyer on Newgate street, the UPP true leader and the military reporter.
How does all this slander of four MPs who have been very quiet and accepting of the confusion that went down help the UPP in the public’s eye? They should be praised for their silence. How does repeating the nasty propaganda of Pringle’s top advisors help Pringle himself build public support in his ability to lead a unified team and win an election?
With such a weak leader emerging, you’d think people would try to project an image that all is well, instead of claiming all kinds of “grieving” and bitterness on the media. Perhaps the propagandists think Gaston’s defeat will come automatically or through a miracle.
Think critically for a moment. The nation as a whole has reacted with shock and concern that Jamale Pringle is leader. So whatever deliberate confusion, clever tactics or whatever was done to get a majority of just 400-something delegates to make Pringle leader has absolutely zero effect on the UPP’s ability to win a general election. The general election is not decided by UPP delegates, remember?
Are you pleased that the UPP will have to spend half the time defending a leader who commands low public confidence? This is a failure of leadership at all levels, which could never happen in the ALP or most other parties in the region. Frankly the Harold Lovells, Wilmoth Daniels and others who used their influence to help Gaston to face an easier opponent in Jamale Pringle next elections is a slap in the face of the people of this country!
The UPP is now in a very unfortunate situation. Less than 1% of the voting population and less than 3% of the number of people who voted UPP last election selected a leader that both the UPP base, the overall voting population and independent voters especially have low confidence in.
Political suicide!
On the other hand, maybe the Hon. Jamale Pringle will work a miracle and totally transform himself and his public support. Miracles do happen….
With all that said, if I was you (and your friends) I would leave the U.P.P. or leave the U.P.P. and form my own Political Party and win the next elections.
Simple as that, but no, you and your friends are leeches trying to get your hands on the public purse.
You and your friends do not embrace what U.P.P. is all about. Quite frankly, it is clear now that until you all leave, the U.P.P. can never win another general election.
Do the honorable thing and just go and let the Party breathe.
This will get worse before better. UPP has done this same seemingly confusion deliberately. Would never change. That’s why UPP will remain in Opposition forever
as long the MAN COW / HAG WITH LIPSTICK is around the party.
Just one question @ J P, did you ever go to university?
#justaskingonbehalfofablpsupporters😁
What supporters of both ALP and UPP who is steep into party ethos of the red color or blue color fail to understand, is that they must be in command of their own ideology and aspirations for their country, because there faithful party that they love so much, and it doesn’t matter how they say they are for the people, they all want to assimilate the colonial master, that’s why black people remain poor and dispossessed after 400 years of slavery, the minute our dearly beloved party take office regardless to all the benevolence it touted on the party trail, it will become a method and an organization which is oppose to the masses of people, it will turn the police and army on its faithful supporters, that’s what the changing of the guard about, because the more it change it remains the same, each party shall maintain colonialism, the first pass the post politics is destructive instead of proportional representation, so one party is subjected to stand by powerless for probably decades and watch the countries destruction in terms of land and resources, which is irreversible under the constitution and judicial system push down our throat. The election of party leadership by popularity instead ideology is shameful, to say the generation of today should be more ideological and academic than our parents of the 50’s era, the millennials did not participate in the upp election leadership fiasco, it was the old die hard supporters steeped in the ethos of merely party color, and anyone sounding messianic, and not what’s good for their future, and of course the wealthy Caucasians control the outcome which is intertwined with their beliefs that there must always be white capital domination, we being menial workers, we fail our country and especially Barbuda which shall endure the wrath of Gaston for decades to come, the upp party has got to employ the tool it has at it’s disposal, a rake won’t pick up dirt but a shovel will, so place the men in the best position to move the country in a different direction, in other words someone else in the party is much more suitable to lead the party now than the present leader, and he pringle is a young honest guy and should not have allowed the party insiders to manipulate him into a proxy leader, he tried his best under his political inexperienced because of circumstances and should be glad to relief himself of the embarrassment and allow someone else to pick up the battle and sit back and assist building his momentum.
So the UPP process is not perfect. Nothing that stems from the mind of men and women anywhere in this world will ever be perfect. Nothing.
Having said that, at least, democracy is alive and well. There are no doubt, inside friction but this again is a part of the human ego.
Tell Gaston Browne to hold a convention as dictated by ALP’s guidelines. Tell him to allow any and all who so desire to be free to challenge him. Any UPP parliamentarian is a hell of a lot better than this greedy, incompetent, narcissistic liar.
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