Over a matter of weeks, the Honourable Asot Michael (believed to be of middle-eastern descent) may have caused extreme distress at or near the top of three branches of Government in Antigua & Barbuda.
The: Chief Magistrate, Speaker of the House and the sitting Prime Minister (all black people) took evasive actions as a kind of “political wrecking ball” appeared to sweep through the heights of polite society.
Such was the consternation, that:
- A Chief Magistrate appearing to hurriedly recuse herself from a matter (some believe) well within her purview.
- A Speaker referring an MP to a Parliamentary Privileges Committee, which does not appear to exist.
- And PM Browne declaring his “frenemy” a future outcast from party and Cabinet.
That an (ethnic minority) elected member of the house could be accused of causing such public mayhem (in a matter of days) suggests that:
- Either the system of public manners is so badly broken in Antigua & Barbuda.
- The accused has yielded contact with minimum behaviour required by polite society.
- or it is OK for a member of an ethnic minority to keep his “knees” on the necks of the black majority (in Antigua-Barbuda) for as long as he likes.
Having observed the politics of these islands for more than 30 years, I never (before) witnessed so great a consternation in the higher echelons of polite society. Truth be told, for decades now, many in Antigua and Barbuda seemed numbed to the alleged excesses of the Antigua & Barbuda Labour Party (ALP) politician and the seeming inability of his party colleagues to do anything. Indeed, members of the public, begun to believe that so overwhelming were any ”secrets”, that some party officials could not survive a release.
In 2014, Gaston Browne became Prime Minister and continued earlier talk about corruption in the party. Leading by example, the PM even laid his finances before the house. But it took the actions of British crime authorities to nudge the hand of Browne and his colleagues. Those British intervention(s) triggering Michael’s sojourn “out of Cabinet, back in Cabinet and out of Cabinet”. Now, if this round is not enough to “break the camel’s back” then the Camel has no spine.
Secrets or not, that any mortal can attract such sustained and decades long, national and (now) international allegations of running roughshod over civil and (perhaps) criminal norms, (almost undisturbed) is stranger than fiction. Let us see if PM Gaston Browne has the “political balls” to “bell the cat” and “put the genie back in the bottle” for some people think “the whole country fed-up”.