By Eliza Francis
Ti-piment, was what Greaves called her on Sunday evening. But if her former soul sistah Sarah Flood-Beaubrun has her way the “little pepper” will be out of the hot sauce of politics faster than she can say “Bring it on!”
While Menissa Rambally was showering flowers on SLP leader Kenny Anthony at a Vieux Fort rally, Flood-Beaubrun was on a UWP platform in Bexon, heaping scorn on the young minister and her tenure in government. Speaking from Guy Joseph’s platform, Flood-Beaubrun said Menissa Rambally had been blindly led by Anthony and that she should be erased from the island’s political future.
For Menissa Rambally, however, the night was extra special; a time for celebration. Certainly not the time to talk about abortion, or the NCA or Helenites or any such unpleasantries. The hundreds present had come to “celebrate the illustrious leader the country had in Dr Anthony, who was a leader by example.” Rambally recalled: “Some nine years ago Mario Michel, Phillip J Pierre, Damian Greaves and a host of other enthusiastic candidates including yours truly stood not too very far from this very spot almost trembling in our boots.
“We were overwhelmed, not by fear of winning the 1997 general elections but by the high expectation of you the voters of this country St Lucia.”She reminded the many gathered that they’d voted in 1997 for a change of government and a change of fortunes. “We walked into our first parliamentary group meeting and from the outset I can say to we that we sensed that all would be well,” she read from a script. “Kenny Anthony, from the beginning inspired team Labour. Kenny Anthony was prepared for the job of leadership. Kenny Anthony became our mentor, our counselor and indeed our friend.
“He was the source of our strength and our inspiration. He held us accountable for every action. He taught us to walk the narrow paths of politics no matter the circumstance at all times . . . You see Kenny Anthony continues to be a firm believer in servant leadership where our focus has been on serving the people and not advancing our personal interest or our personal agenda. He believes my brothers and sisters in democratic norms and values and ultimately in our being able to account to the people of this country for our every action. Our ability to account to the people of this country for our stewardship. In all this and over the past nine years Kenny Anthony has lead by example and I tell you that nothing is so infectious as example.”
What’s that you say? What about the promise to reveal all about Rochamel during this election campaign? This was not the night to entertain such thoughts. Better to focus on the “captain who had a vision.”“At the end of our first five years we succeeded not only through hard work and dedication but also through divine guidance and inspired earthly leadership,” Ms Rambally continued. “Brothers and sisters of Labour I Mennisa stand before you and a living testimony of what divine guidance and inspired leadership by Dr Kenny Anthony can produce.”
Rambally said Anthony had returned “integrity and creditability to the leadership of St Lucia. No longer my brothers and sisters is the leadership of St Lucia characterized by prime ministerial letters written to teenage girls. Tonight I remember Mark Foley in the United States who wrote such letters to little boys in Congress and has been banished forever to the dustbins of American politics. That is an interesting lesson and that is precisely what should happen to anyone on St Lucian politics with similar backgrounds.”
Pity that at the height of the McDoom affair Ms Rambally had steered clear of that particular scandal. At the time her colleagues had opined that whatever a man did in his bedroom was his own affair. Just when the crowd was no doubt beginning to think Anthony might be the lamb without spot or blemish Ms Rambally said: “But Kenny Anthony is also a man born of a woman and so he has made mistakes. But none have ever been so great as to humiliate the St Lucia Labour Party or the people of St Lucia.”
The young minister would go on to highlight the many changes she said had gone on in St Lucia under SLP rule—from a banana producing territory to a first rate developing island “where its people prosper and where there is respect for laws and where there is respect for the rule of law.” “Kenny Anthony is a man indeed committed to this country and it’s people,” the minister said finally. “Behind Kenny Anthony is a team of candidates who have his back. Prime Minister your team has your back, we will preserve you and we will lighten your load as you move the progress of this country forward.”