By: Erasmus Williams
Charlestown, Nevis, October 24, 2018 – The youngest elected parliamentarian in the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly has highlighted the ingredients of inclusion in rebranding and reorganising a political party.
Addressing the Nevis Reformation Party Convention at the Jessup’s Community Center on Sunday, under the theme: “Moving Forward Together,” the Hon. Konris Maynard, Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher 3 (West Basseterre), advanced an unrelenting quest to do what is right and truthful.
“It is also important to remain true to yourself and true to your party because your party has to remain a tent for all of your supporters. Inevitably, there will be supporters that will prefer the older way of doing things. The Party must remain recognizable to that group of supporters and there must be a deliberate effort to keep them in the tent,” said Maynard, adding: “Sometimes in losing, some are tempted to throw out everything that is old or from previous leadership. Amazingly, people even do this when they win a government. They throw out all of the people from the previous government forgetting that the Government Civil Service is a Partisan employer and forgetting that a Government ought to be continuous while an administration might change.”
He was firmed in the view that “you cannot discard the institutional history that long-standing servants of a party have. They must be heard, they must be listened to and they must be included. Emphasis must always be placed on the balance of contending ideas from stalwarts and from newbies or the just comes.”
“The electorate as a collectively group, almost always makes a decision, which to them, is in its best interest at the time. Effectively, the electorate is always right, based on the information the electorate has in front of them at the time, barring of course wide systematic voter fraud,” said Maynard.
He continued: “Therefore, if one loses an election it is because the message did not resonate enough with the electorate and it is certainly not because the electorate is stupid.”
MP Maynard is further of the view that in a functioning democracy, the electorate is generally always right based on the information that they have at the time.
“Therefore, we ought to be taking our cues from the collective voices of the electorate. They may be saying, good message, wrong candidate; or right candidate, wrong message; or they may not have heard you or us at all. The point is that it is we in the party who are responsible for our fate at the polls,” said Maynard who complimented the NRP for “listening to the electorate and have embarked on a journey to reorganize and rebrand.”
He said it was a critical moment in the history of the NRP and one that will decide the future of the Party and the Party’s role in the development of Nevis and by extension the development of St. Kitts and Nevis for years to come.
“I understand that today, for the first time in 26 years, your great party will be electing a new Leader. It is therefore an understatement to say that this will be a make or break moment in the history of the NRP. How the souljahs collectively respond to whatever the outcome of your elections is, will define the role of the NRP in Nevis and National Politics for some time to come,” Maynard said.
Photo 1 – Hon. Konris Maynard
Photo 2 – Hon. Joseph Parry, former NRP leader (left) and new Political Leader, Mr. Robelto Hector
