After Mrs Gillard was sworn in as Prime Minister -- at a ceremony where Mr Rudd was forced to sit through the humiliating culmination of the palace coup against him with those who planned and executed it -- she behaved like any new Prime Minister, talking about her future vision for the country. Born on the island of Barry in the English port city of South Wales (where St. Lucia’s bananas still land) she’s an immigrant who climbed the Australian state ladder with much gusto in little time. The transplanted Pacific Brit said she wanted to see Australia dump the Queen of England as its Head of State -- but only after Queen Elizabeth is Her Majesty no more.
However, it was her next move that doomed Mrs Gillard and her Labour Party. She didn’t need to, but wanted to electorally confirm herself in the Prime Minister’s job. Not wanting to be described as having been handed Rudd’s job like the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter, she and Labour arranged an early general election to have the voters confirm her. Big mistake. Mrs Gillard thought she was only seeking her confirmation, but she was also asking Australians to approve the manner in which King Kevin had been stabbed in the back by his own princes in favour of a princess who was already heir to the throne.
Mrs Gillard and Labour ought to have learned from some recent examples. In Britain, Gordon Brown became Labour Leader and was sworn in as Prime Minister just ahead of Tony Blair completing his second term. Unlike Australia’s Labour, British Labour succeeded in confirming Brown in the due general elections. (After all, he remained a faithful Deputy Prime Minister and hadn’t stabbed Blair in the back…) But when Brown called his first election near the end of his first term as an elected Prime Minister, British voters returned an inconclusive response that forced the two major parties -- Labour and Conservative -- to go on bended knees to the Liberal Democrats. After three consecutive terms in office, Labour had received a backlash from the electorate, which was obviously not overwhelmed by Brown in the last British poll.
Mrs Gillard and Labour could also have learned from the last general elections in Trinidad & Tobago earlier this year, called much prematurely by Prime Minister Patrick Manning to worm himself out of an uneasy parliamentary situation. Trinidadians were clearly upset at having to go back to the polls, two years ahead of the due date, just because Prime Minister Manning couldn’t settle his party’s problems internally and in the parliament. The opposition parties saw an opening and moved quickly. Mrs Kamla Persad-Bisessar succeeded in replacing Basdeo Panday as Leader of the United National Congress and then Opposition Leader – unlike Mrs Gillard, without spilling political blood. Mrs Persad-Bissessar was also selected to lead a grand opposition coalition against Manning’s People’s National Movement. The coalition roundly defeated the PNM and Mrs Persad-Bissessar became Prime Minister, earning her victory spurs all the way.
Obviously, Mrs Gillard was probably looking at other examples. Or, maybe, she was seeking to design her own shortcut path to the throne. But she had taken her eyes off the ball – and that’s when the electorate scored the equalizer that knifed her in the heart like she and the others had done to Rudd.
It’s now penalty shoot-out time on the Australian political battlefield. Labour and the Liberals have tied the goal score, but it’s the new frontline independents who will be spinning the coin and making the call to decide which team they will kick for. The penalty kicks can continue until one side is clearly ahead, but in this brand of political football, the game can also be over in a day, or it can go on and on, without end. It can last as long as five years, but it could also be over in one day – as Kevin Rudd sadly learned and Manning found out..
So, is there any lesson for St. Lucia? Or the rest of the Caribbean?
Stephenson King and the UWP thought against calling a snap election to confirm him as Prime Minister after Sir John was buried. It’s never been clear to the public how he succeeded Sir John as Political leader and Prime Minister, but his party gathered around him and elected not to take the chance and seek a fresh mandate without Sir John. The UWP chose instead to ride it out, test the waters along the way, hold on to power and build its electoral case until it’s ready to call the next general elections.
Kenny Anthony and the SLP are in no position to decide on the exact date of the next elections, but there are lessons from Australia too for the local opposition party – if only a reminder of the potential political cost of changing horsemen or horses in mid-stream; and the always unpredictable response from an electorate that didn’t cause the mess it’ being called upon to clean-up.
However, there’s also one lesson the Australians can learn from St. Lucia’s rich political experience – that returning to the polls for a better mandate than that offered by the voters in a national poll can also result in the electorate rejecting the rudeness of the reluctant or ingrate winners by returning the very same result a second time around.
It’s only in situations like these here described that some parties and politicians are forced to feel, learn and understand the power of the voters. Such situations also allow those politicians and voters who didn’t know to better now understand and appreciate the importance, extreme value and full equality of each and every vote on Election Day, whether the elector is rich or poor, local or foreign, friend or family foe.
The one constant lesson for all parties and politicians here and everywhere else, however, is that the electorate should never be taken for granted. They will always strike back when you least expect it. And they’ll kick you in the place it hurts most. Yes, in the ballot box.

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