Near the end of 2013 Yours Truly departed St Kitts & Nevis after completing a brief but very enlightening stint working a morning radio program that dealt with the politics of the Federation from an SKNLP point of view. I was in a hurry to get back to my home islands, where the 2014 General Elections campaign was about to begin in earnest. Convinced that Antigua & Barbuda needed to see the back of the United Progressive Party regime as an absolute necessity, I understood that on the ground in A&B was the place to be, doing my do for my own country in the best way I could.

That was the primary motivation. Not far behind was an overpowering sense that the people of the Federation of St Kitts & Nevis should work out their own destiny on their own terms, according to their own socio-political reality. In a real sense that personal attitude reflected the position of governments in our OECS family, who all refrained from adopting any stance for or against either side in what was a purely internal matter.

Our island nations may be striving to become a single OECS family, but we are not quite there yet … and the issues at stake in SKN would not have been well served by interference – verbal or otherwise – from any OECS Head of Government. In this connection it is noteworthy that no OECS leader appeared on the scene to give aid and comfort to either side in the just-concluded epic campaign. Who then was I, a single individual with no dog in the fight, to help mold the attitude of my neighbors in a struggle that was rather beyond the ordinary in the history of a sister OECS nation?

Because … make no mistake about this – the momentous shift of power that took place on Monday last would be a defining moment for the Federation of St Kitts & Nevis; and the people of that country deserved the right to make their decision in the way they saw fit, on their own terms. Yours Truly had no business serving in SKN as a hired hand on behalf of the status quo, when my own heart was bent on upsetting an unwelcome status quo in my own struggling little nation.

Besides, the same keen political instincts that had driven me to the conclusion that come what may A&B must make a change in 2014 were shrieking some news that my SKNLP sponsors did not need to hear from any new kid on the block: Beneath the cloud of PR dust that the SKNLP political machine was stirring up, a movement for some new dispensation was growing among the people. What was unclear – and the peculiar nature of the St Kitts & Nevis political landscape made it very difficult to form any precise impression – was how this surge would play out on the ground on a future Election Day: and Yours Truly did not need to throw a spanner in the works … so off I went, to mix myself up in the internal affairs of my own tiny islands.

Some sweet day – and hopefully very soon – our OECS family will have grown up enough for our people to see ourselves as truly united, with a common history and with mutually held aspirations. When that day comes all OECS politics will be truly local; but that time is not yet. Until then our enlightened island leaders should take care to involve themselves in the internal affairs of their neighbors only in the most circumspect manner – and only when such involvement will clearly lead to positive results.

An unmissable opportunity for just such constructive involvement came on Tuesday, as the SKN Supervisor of Elections opted not only to cease announcements of the results from the various ballot boxes, but to suspend counting ballots altogether. For reasons yet to be explained the counting did not begin until nearly 11pm on Monday: and that is disturbing in itself. The decision to cease announcing the interim results was alarming; the suspension of the vote-counting process was downright frightening. It is no wonder various heads of OECS and CARICOM governments bestirred themselves and uttered urgent reproof. The episode cast a very bad light on democratic values in the region, and it underscores the archaic, decrepit and corrupted state of the St Kitts & Nevis electoral system. This may not be precisely Job One for the new Unity government, but a thorough, root and branch reform of the entire SKN electoral machinery should be a top priority.

So … wisely left to their own devices, the people of the Federation of St Kitts & Nevis have opted to bring an end to the 20-year reign of Dr Denzil Douglas’ St Kitts & Nevis Labour Party. In doing so the SKN electorate has redefined the nation’s political landscape in a most revealing manner. Voters not only rejected Dr Douglas’ hand-picked Young Labourites (only popular Calypso King Konris Maynard made it through, unseating hapless former Douglas creature Sam Condor in West Basseterre) – they also dumped another Douglas stalwart, Dr Earl Asim Burke, in East Basseterre. Besides Dr Douglas himself, in his far west rural Constituency Number 6, only former Health Minister Marcella Liburd survives, in Central Basseterre. This leaves the SKNLP with only 3 seats on the main island and one ally on Nevis: Constituency Number 11 held by former Attorney General Patrice Nisbett of the Nevis Reformation Party.

The Unity Party’s 7-seat victory can only be dubbed decisive. My suspicion is that the anti-SKNLP swing gained added momentum in the last months, weeks and days before February 16, as Dr Douglas’ increasingly frantic maneuvers on the boundaries issue revealed the desperation underneath his flamboyant bravado. When the Privy Council, moving with blinding speed, handed down its critical decision on the boundaries appeal it was all but over for the SKNLP – but still not even the CADRES organization, with its polling expertise, dared call the election for either side.

For Unity the PAM held its ground, performing strongly and helping to catapult People’s Labour Party leader Dr Timothy Harris – his ambitions at last fulfilled – into the Prime Minister’s position. The CCM turned in its own strong performance on Nevis, to seal the deal for the Unity Party. Sweetest of all must be the triumph of Ian “Patches” Liburd, who succeeded in unseating incumbent Dr Earl Asim Burke. Former PAM leader Lindsay Grant can now justly be seen as having been forgiven any earlier missteps along the political trail. On Monday the people of the Federation of St Kitts & Nevis spoke with a loud voice – and in doing so they redefined the politics of St.Kitts-Nevis .

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politics of our OECS sister nation.