As was the case in 1999 when it was in government, Keith Mitchell’s New National Party (NNP) in Grenada swept all 15 constituency seats at stake in general elections in Grenada on Tuesday, as voters punished the party of former Prime Minister Tillman Thomas for its bitter infighting, high unemployment rates and a struggling economy, blasting Thomas’ administration into political oblivion.
Thomas’ National Democratic Congress (NDP) had won 11 of the 15 seats in 2008 as voters, fed up by a series of corruption scandals in the Mitchell administration, kicked him and his party out of office.
But long before Tuesday’s polls were held, practically everyone but Thomas and a handful of diehard supporters, loyal party executives and cabinet ministers knew the writing was on the wall–that the NDC could not have survived the highly publicized split of the party down the middle, the departures of political high-flyers like former Foreign Minister Peter David and other dissidents who formed their own party, as well as the negative publicity generated by the internal squabbling in the NDC.
The result is that U.S.-educated Mitchell, 65, will again have to govern without an elected opposition and will now have to depend on the appointments of both government and opposition senators to make parliament appear as if those who did not vote for him do in fact have a voice.
Grenada is the island nation just north of Trinidad, which the U.S. had invaded back in the bitter Cold War days of 1983, ostensibly and allegedly to stop the march of communism and to cut Fidel Castro’s influence in its geographical backyard. Nineteen American soldiers died, along with several Cuban technocratic workers and Grenadian soldiers and revolutionary guards.
The island has largely recovered from the September 2004 effects of Hurricane Ivan, which had devastated the main nutmeg and spice crop and had turned large parts of the country into a tent city as roofs were smashed to pieces.
About 60,000 of the 110,000 citizens of the island were eligible to vote. Thomas, who obviously lost his seat and will have to return to work as an attorney, conceded early into Tuesday night as results rushed in. “We seem to have lost. The results show that we have not won a seat. We have to regroup, get back and re-organize,” he said, uncertain as to whether he would retain party leadership.
For his part, Prime Minister-elect Mitchell told cheering supporters, “I have accepted the awesome responsibility that you have placed on my shoulders, me and my team. I accept with the greatest humility.”