Challenging the Boss-Men

Just to dip my index finger

in your indelible ink

And trace an angel's death-cross

against my door?

Hah, let the black levers

stay unpulled

Till the crack of doom.

Thus did a local poet, U. Loutoo, describe his feelings about last week's elections in Trinidad and Tobago. The key issue in the campaign was whether the islanders should vote at all. Prime Minister Eric Williams, the arrogant and donnish political leader of his country since 1956, urged a big turnout for his People's National Movement. Most opposition leaders and their supporters, like Poet Loutoo, advocated an election boycott. As is true in much of the Caribbean, Trinidad has severe economic problems; unemployment is rising, tourism is in trouble, and many islanders are disgruntled that they have not reaped the benefits of nationhood or industrial development. The boycott was a protest against the government's refusal to adopt certain electoral reforms. It enabled the Prime Minister's party to win all 36 seats in the lower house of Parliament, but the opposition scored a tactical victory by holding the turnout to only 32.9% of the nearly 353,000 eligible voters.

The boycotters also precipitated a constitutional crisis. According to the country's London-made constitution, the lower house must contain an opposition leader and the upper house must include at least four opposition members. Opposition leaders declared that Williams had failed to win a mandate and demanded that he call new elections. But late in the week Governor-General Sir Solomon Hochoy, who is appointed by Queen Elizabeth, asked Williams to form a new government.

Ping Pong Samba. Last year Williams put down a Black Power riot that coincided with an attempted mutiny by elements of his 750-man army. In the recent campaign he attacked his leading opponent, A.N.R. (for Arthur Napoleon Raymond) Robinson, 44, as a "halfwit" and said the others "could change places with the jackasses in the canefields." He told voters: "I have the power. I say come, and they cometh, I say go, and they goeth." The boast inevitably inspired an opposition sign: COMETH, GOETH, VOTETH NO.

Many heeded the advice. On election eve, Williams rode around Port of Spain in a carnival shirt embroidered with the words PING PONG SAMBA. A loudspeaker blared, "Come out by the thousands and vote. Mothers, we are counting on you." Mothers and others merely "limed" (loafed) under pink-blossomed poui trees in Queen's Park, however, or watched a cricket match.

Williams is one of the few Caribbean politicians of his generation who did not come to power via the unions. Political Scientist Uria Forbes of Antigua's University of the West Indies observes: "The boss-man of the union has emerged as the charismatic political leader of the laboring class, always the predominant group on the islands. He has replaced the old planter aristocrat as well as the old British governor."

That description may not be tailored to Williams, but it fits another West Indian politician, Robert L. Bradshaw, 55, as perfectly as the cutaways he once affected, along with stiff collars and a waxed mustache. "Papa" Bradshaw, who won his fifth consecutive five-year term as Prime Minister of St. Kitts-Nevis last month, is the Caribbean's most spectacular example of an adaptable politician. A onetime bicycle mechanic and cane cutter, Bradshaw took on airs when he gained power; an acquaintance recalls a time in London ten years ago when he announced that he was slipping over to France to oversee the blowing of his special order of Baccarat brandy glasses. But the shrewd Bradshaw has sensed the trade winds of change, and he has responded to them. He has forsaken his vintage yellow Rolls-Royce for an open Land Rover, his Savile Row clothes for dirty khakis, and his BBC accent for the tone of a canefield boss. As one observer in St. Kitts put it: "He has co-opted the whole youth movement and now dresses `a la Che."

Recent Casualties. Bradshaw's lusty victory speech, delivered in a rumpled bush jacket and battered fatigue hat, was like a war cry: "We go on from tomorrow, sweeping everything before us. Vox populi, vox dei." When the Latin words failed to rouse his audience, Bradshaw roared: "Power to the people!" Some observers even wondered whether the Prime Minister, in his present mood, might try by military means to reclaim Anguilla, which seceded from his three-island federation in 1967. Such action seemed unlikely if only because Bradshaw has nothing but a ferryboat with which to transport his 40-man invasion army.

Both Bradshaw and Williams, by enduring for so long, have run counter to a trend that is at work elsewhere in the Caribbean. The region's overriding problem is unemployment. Of all the British West Indies, only Trinidad has a jobless rate under 20%. In the smaller islands, dependent on crops like sugar, cotton, cocoa and bananas, unemployment runs as high as 40%.

Their resentment has been felt at the polls. Recent casualties include Montserrat's chief minister, William Bramble, and Antigua's Vere Cornwall Bird (TIME, Feb. 21). Both Bramble and Bird had dominated the politics of their islands for more than 25 years, but they gradually lost the popular touch. On both islands, the transfer of power was more generational than ideological--young boss-men succeeding older ones. Bramble was defeated by his son and Bird was succeeded by George Walter, 32, whom Bird had groomed to run his sugar workers union.

Mongoose Macoutes. The next West Indian politician to face a test is Grenada's wiry, volatile Prime Minister Eric Gairy, who is up for re-election next year. "Uncle Gairy," as he likes to be called, rules the lush island with an iron hand. Gairy has reinforced his position with his own version of Haiti's Tontons Macoutes, a strong-arm spy organization that is known as the "Mongoose." The title has a wry connotation. The mongoose was originally introduced to the Caribbean to kill snakes on sugar plantations. Today it has become something of a menace, devouring only harmless chickens.

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