The Keith Mitchell/Peter David marriage of convenience has just about come to the expected end.
The coronation on Sunday of former Education Minister Emmalin Pierre as the new Political Leader of the New National Party (NNP) has brought an end to David’s ambitions to become the party’s new boss following the decision of the 78-year old Keith Mitchell not to seek re-election for another term.
It’s a bitter separation with David, the former NNP Agriculture Minister feeling the wrath and fury of an angry Mitchell who publicly humiliated his former Assistant General Secretary and treated him as a political enemy of the worst kind.
There can be no healing of the wounds of David to remain within the house of the NNP as he now has no choice but to try and pick up the pieces from the onslaught against him by the aging Mitchell.
There is talk coming out of the David Camp that he will quit NNP to form his own political party – a move that is about ten years too late for the Member of Parliament for the Town of St George.
Grenada is now back to a 2-party system under the Westminster brand of Democracy following the collapse of the Marxist 1979-83 Grenada Revolution and a third party can only be on the fringes of the political landscape.
David chose political opportunism to join the NNP in 2014 after he was expelled from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a protracted leadership squabble with then Prime Minister Tillman Thomas and Finance Minister Nazim Burke.
He was expected to become the new political leader of a group called NUF that was formed by another NDC who was also expelled, former Minister Glynis Roberts, to mount a challenge to the dominance of the two existing political parties.
A number of persons who had pledged loyalty to NUF were left disappointed and felt betrayed by David who had been secretly engaged in discussions with Keith Mitchell to work out an arrangement and accommodation.
The question to be asked – Peter and who will be involved in the new political party in the making?
The days of one-manism are over and the likes of Chester Humphrey and the other remnants of 1979-83 cannot show their faces publicly given their involvement in the blood-letting that took place in October 1983 with the execution of then Prime Minister Maurice Bishop following the infighting of the then ruling New Jewel Movement (NJM).
The best that Peter David can do is to become a spoiler in the next general election in taking away votes that will affect NNP or NDC in some key constituencies.
On the other hand, the NNP has a lot of work to do in order to regain its once enviable position of being the political giant in Grenada, Carriacou & Petite Martinique.
Keith Mitchell has badly handled the transition to Emmalin Pierre and took the internal bickering within the NNP to the public.
The ex-Prime Minister did not cut a good sight and often looked too angry in his many Zonal meetings which did not spell out an action plan for the development of the country but focused on a tirade of David for expressing interest in becoming the new Political Leader of the party.
The new NNP Political Boss has a lot of work to do in her own rural St Andrew South-east constituency as a number of top aides who were suspected to be loyal to David were overlooked and brushed aside as delegates for the Convention.
Emmalin Pierre will have a battle on her hands to get these people to campaign for her and the NNP in the next general election.
Given the current disarray within the NNP, it is doubtful that persons with credibility will feel attracted to join Emmalin Pierre, Keith Mitchell and Gregory Bowen in a crusade to sweep out Congress from office.
The NNP Group could be humiliated if NDC finds its feet and transform the party into an organised political entity to be feared in all parts of the country.
Its current General Secretary Learrie Barry and those around him have not given the impression that they have the know-how to get the job done for the party.
Politics is a science and the three parties who were able to apply it over the years are the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP) of Eric Gairy, the New Jewel Movement (NJM) of Maurice Bishop and NNP under Keith Mitchell from the mid-1990’s.
Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell might be brilliant as an attorney-at-law but is still feeling his way in the political arena.
The NDC has to make a decision – sooner and not later – to hire a politically-savvy individual to put the party on the correct path where organised politics is concerned to stay in office as long as possible to implement its transformational agenda.
The current rulers of Grenada need that paid and competent individual whose day-to-day job is to apply organised scientific political work for Congress in order to get everything right for the next election.
Finally, THE NEW TODAY wishes all and sundry in our tri-island state and in the Diaspora to put aside their political preferences and differences at the moment and to focus on the true meaning of the Christ Child and his purpose on earth in this holy period of the year.