Is it politics as usual?
Introduction
Like last year, I will not grade the Opposition like what I did for the Government, simply because they are not in Government and there is only so much, they can do. This year I decided to do a SWOT analysis of the Opposition.
Strengths
Maturity Level of the Leader
I think one of the greatest strengths of the Opposition is the maturity level of the Leader of the Opposition. He appears to be mature and does not take things personally when the Opposition is being criticized objectively. At least from where I sit, that is how it appears. Should he become the next Premier and maintain this attitude, he will do well. However, he still must ensure his supporters do likewise.
Persistent
Despite there being only two members in the House of Assembly, the Opposition appears to be strong and persistent, and they do not easily give up. They are not letting their small numbers in Parliament keep them quiet. They have used the legal system about the validity of the DMO and they are using the Integrity Commission about whether it was conflict of interest for the Premier to present the amendments to the Gaming licence.
Communicate well.
I do think the Opposition does a great job in communication. In fact, it appears that the PDM does a better job than the PNP when it comes to communication
Weaknesses
Politicizing crime
I think the Opposition must be very careful in politicizing crime. I do think they should put pressure on the Government and the Governor about being quiet at times about crime. However, crime should not be politicized. It has been done in the past by this same party and they came up with a 12-point crime plan. However, that did not work and in the end the leader said that the crime situation is spiritual. I too believe it is spiritual. The crime that is taking place now would have happened even if the PDM was in power. As I mentioned in one of my inspirational articles, crime is happening because individuals are acting out on their evil thoughts. No legislation will control their behaviours and the Opposition will not be able to stop the criminals from behaving the way they behaved.
Talking against the bills they presented in the past.
There has been a great talk about the amendments to the Gaming Control and Gaming Machine. The thing is this was legislation that was passed in 2018 by the then Government of which the Leader of the Opposition of was a part. This Government made amendments to bring clarity to the Ordinance by clarifying about adjusted gross receipts and to add a penalty element in the amendment.
Politics as usual
There has been an increase in salaries for the civil servants and the politicians. A year or two ago, the Opposition Leader in the past talked about the significant discrepancies between the salaries of House of Assembly members and the salaries of directors and CEOs of statutory bodies. However, when the new salaries were presented to the House of the Assembly, the Opposition did not support the salaries and thought that the salaries were too high for the House of Assembly members. This is contrary to what was said before and it seems like politics as usual.
I was also very surprised to hear the Leader of the Opposition blamed the Government for inflation. Is this politics as usual? Inflation can happen under any Government I don’t think any Government will deliberately cause inflation. We are totally linked to the American Economy, when there is inflation in America, there will be inflation in TCI.
The Leader said the Tourist Board was sold. The Tourist Board was not sold. It was replaced with the DMO and the Tourism Regulations Department.
Opportunities
Engage with the public.
While I think the Opposition does communicate well, they should have more engagement with the public so if they become the next Government, they do not have to wait to develop policies, they would already know what the people want.
Private motion
Even though the Opposition is small, if they are concerned about the Government not implementing certain policies, they can do something about it by putting a private motion in the House of Assembly. For example, the appointed member expressed his concern about locals being allowed to gamble. If that is a concern, then the appointed member should present a private motion to the house to disallow locals from gambling.
Educate the public about Independence.
On June 29th at the swearing in of our 16th Governor H.E. Dileeni Daniel-Selveratnum, the Opposition Leader for the first time I know has mentioned about the need for independence. Since then, there has not been anything else said about independence. This is an opportunity to educate the public about the pros and cons of independence. You do not have to wait until the election campaign or until you get in Government.
Run new candidates.
Normally the Governing party runs the same people unless someone challenges them. However, the Opposition has an opportunity to present new candidates to the people.
Threats
Using the same people
Some of the same people that were rejected at the last election are planning to run again. This may be a threat for the Opposition.
Performance of the current Government
Whether the Opposition may not admit this, this Government has rolled out some initiatives that no other Government has ever done. Initiatives such as the housing plan, the establishment of the informal settlement units, the increase in categories for grants at Invest TCI, the establishment of TCI Finance, enforcing the Reserved Categories such as the construction categories and real estate, improvement in crown lands, revising immigration laws to make it harder for persons to get TC Islander status and to ensure that great grand children of descendants can get status. These achievements can be a threat to the Opposition.
Derogatory name calling.
While the Leader does not engage in derogatory name calling, I find that the supporters of the PDM party engage in more name calling than the supporters of the PNP. Personally, I think this is a deterrent and will turn people away from supporting the opposition.
Poor in 2024
I did not agree with the Leader of the Opposition saying Poor in 2024. There are a lot of opportunities in our country and no Turks and Caicos Islander should be poor. If the Opposition thinks this is the case, then they should reach out to the citizens to empower them, so they do not become poor.
Same set of civil servants
No matter who the Government of the day is, the elected officials will make laws and budget for various things, but the day-to-day operations of Government is done by same set of civil servants no matter which party in power. I used this a threat because sometimes the Opposition acts like they can run the Government independent of the civil servants.
Be careful of the Opportunists.
Some people are joining the Opposition because they are upset or did not get what they expected from the Government. I believe that some people also put their names up to run because they feel that there will be a change in Government. This is a threat to the Opposition. Be very careful.
Conclusion.
The Opposition has a great opportunity to become the next Government given the trend of the last two elections where there was a change in Government in 2016 and 2021 respectively.
However, the Opposition should still be cautious as this current Government could win again because they did some things to empower Turks and Caicos Islanders.
Finally, there is a very important point that I agree with the leader of opposition is that we must ensure that savings from the duty reduction is passed onto the consumers, and this would have to be done through legislation.