Will The Saint Lucia PM Lose Votes Over Crime-What My Study of Eastern Caribbean Leadership Shows
A hard crime wave has rocked Saint Lucia. Gun deaths have skyrocketed in the small Eastern Caribbean Island State and Prime Minister Phillip J. Pierre seems to be addressing the crisis with great candor, resolve, and skill. He has commented frankly on political division on the Police Force, for example in ways that would raise eyebrows in neighboring countries.
Generally, Eastern Caribbean electorates do not punish their policy makers for negative performance on social issues, including crime. Voters in the Eastern Caribbean reward policymakers for only a few issues, mainly education and housing. And crime seems not to be one of those radioactive issues. It’s all part of the attitude of fatalism among Eastern Caribbean masses. It’s either stated as God is in control, or, What will be will be.
Fatalism towards crime manifests a little differently among politicians. Eastern Caribbean Governments frame crime as a societal issue, something natural like hurricanes and earthquakes that is completely out of their hands. Interestingly, Opposition parties share that view, too. By framing crime this way, both Government and Opposition depoliticize crime, putting it out of the sphere of political control. Instead, Eastern Caribbean politics and policy are about smaller things, like caring for the poor, including the victims of crime, without tackling huge social challenges like crime. Only their effects.
That said, many Opposition parties in the Eastern Caribbean agree that crime is indeed a problem, then ask the people to hold the Government accountable. What Eastern Caribbean Opposition parties do not do, however, is frame crime in a way that makes it amenable to policy or political action. To frame crime as a policy problem, they would have to reposition crime not as a social problem that does not belong to or respond to policy and politics. They would have to reframe it as responsive to policy. That’s a tall order. No wonder political leaders in the Eastern Caribbean do not touch it.
But things can change fast in politics. The key question for the government of Saint Lucia, therefore, is whether it can lead through such a life-and-death crisis while communicating a message of caring and competence to the voters.
In any society at any one time, only a few issues can attract interest and attention and register on the politics and policy radar as a political and policy issue. Politics is a mechanism for solving a society’s problems. If a problem does not even show up on the political radar, it will not climb on the political agenda. The prospects of crime being successfully repositioned as a policy issue in Saint Lucia appear slim. Eastern Caribbean Opposition politicians and their organizations do not invest heavily enough in policy research and innovation and are not different enough from the Government to succeed at it.
Plus, there is a risk in politicizing crime, according to some political leaders. It can come back and bite you in the pants when you win power.
