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Will we ever win with Wavel?

A growing number of disillusioned opposition supporters are slowly coming round to the view that it is not possible to win with Wavel and unless there are changes in the leadership of the opposition forces we will be consigned to a lifetime in opposition. SNP clearly needs to raise its game in the New Year.

The question we want to put to Wavel is this. What is your game, mate? We have witnessed a lot of madness coming from SNP recently. Is there method in such madness? Or is it really that there is madness in SNP’s new method for conducting the business of opposition? But if there is a plan behind Wavel’s inexplicable behaviour and flip-flop, we can’t see it.

In a few short weeks, SNP’s actions have proved that both Albert Rene and James Mancham were right. That can’t be good for the business that we are in. Albert Rene said that the SNP/DP alliance will not last. Wavel has proved him right, probably much earlier than Rene expected. As leader of the opposition in the 1990s, James Mancham believed that tea and cakes and tête-à-têtes at State House were de rigueur for any opposition party, despite the fact that opposition supporters saw it as betrayal. Wavel’s current position is a flip-flop and we have yet to hear a plausible explanation for it. He is prepared to brave the heavily guarded security gates of State House with amazing regularity. There was a time when he wouldn’t be seen darkening the doors of State House -- not for all the tea in China.

The SNP/DP alliance had its critics in the opposition right from the start. SNP leadership went ahead anyway. It was therefore important for SNP to make the alliance work and overcome silly differences along the way. But the alliance was cast aside on flimsy grounds, in an arrogant manner that raised a few questions about SNP as a party ready for government. SPPF had a field day as it gleefully pointed out that had the alliance won the presidency in 2006 Seychelles would have been propelled into a constitutional crisis soon after. The other event in this SNP/DP dispute that reflected badly on SNP was its decision to print Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly newspaper and then to shut down the paper only a week after Mancienne had said they would carry-on in a way that even the SPPF had never done with an opposition paper -- Regar or Weekly. The issue of press censorship (a hallmark of dictatorship) is very close to our hearts and we cannot condone any attempts at censorship wherever they come from. Our complaints to Reporters Sans Frontiers and other international organisations about SPPF press censorship and lack of free speech in Seychelles will sound hollow if the main opposition party is blatantly censoring other opposition parties in some internecine war. We are concerned that SNP are prepared to take such action that seriously damages the cause of the opposition, as long as it stamps out criticisms of the leaders of SNP.

The outcome of the SNP/DP dispute is that DP is emerging as a stronger opposition party. This can only weaken SNP and strengthen SPPF. We all know that it is the same people who moved from DP to SNP and some will now move back to DP. As leader of the opposition, it was Wavel’s duty to keep the opposition strong and united in order to dislodge the SPPF. He has failed. A splintered opposition is no match for the SPPF that can depend on some 40% of the electorate.

Given the new SNP rapprochement (we get emotive in a minute and use the word ‘collaboration’) with the SPPF, it is hard to believe that it was only a few weeks ago that SNP was squabbling with DP over the SPPF’s One China policy. It was an issue that SNP would have done better keeping its mouth shut, rather than take a position that annoyed China. What did we gain by such grandstanding apart from an enemy in China? France and its already unfriendly ambassador too were needlessly needled, in an attempt to put acres of green spaces between SNP and the SPPF. Since then, we are losing count of the number of times SNP has been in agreement with the SPPF and voting with them in the national assembly. The message from SNP is clear. This collaboration is not just for Christmas (more’s the pity), despite the lack of Christmas presents from the SPPF (in public anyway). We bet the SPPF can’t believe their luck. It must have been like all their Christmases have come at once.

Is SNP losing it? We ask the question after finding out, without warning as usual; that there has been another Wavel flip-flop and he has this year for the first time ever voted with the SPPF on the budget. This is the same budget that gives millions to district administrators to support SPPF at the critical grass-root level. It is irrelevant that the budget includes ideas stolen from SNP’s manifesto. The strategy must have been to oppose the SPPF budget and put forward an alternative budget. Christ knows that the country needs a budget that will seriously bring about economic renewal. The last thing the country needs is both SNP and SPPF agreeing on the methods to shaft the Seychellois people. The change-averse electorate in Seychelles will not vote for SNP if its policies are being implemented by the SPPF. SNP should be worried when the SPPF steals its policies and not vote hand in hand with them.

There was another missed opportunity a few days ago. One by one (so SBC would have us believed), SNP MNAs praised the setting up of the quango to collect taxes. The quango is probably a good idea, if the SPPF allows it to work without fear or favour to collect taxes. But did SNP MNAs have to go on television to sing praises to the SPPF for setting up this quango which will in any case turn out to be like all quangos under the SPPF -- headed by an SPPF lackey to promote the SPPF. It would have been better for the SNP to attack the SPPF for failing to collect taxes (money needed for hospitals) and tell the people that another SPPF quango will not change anything. In fact, Wavel chose to attack SNP supporters who change sides so that they can avoid taxes as an SPPF supporter. Attacking voters (while agreeing with the SPPF in the same SBC television footage) is a sure sign that we are losing it.