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DE RUEHGR #0047/01 1491508
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 291508Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY GRENADA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0565
INFO RUEHWN/AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN 0571
RUEHGR/AMEMBASSY GRENADA 0658

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 GRENADA 000047 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV GJ
SUBJECT: NDC STRUGGLES TO GOVERN 
 
¶1. (U) The government of Grenada is finding that governing is 
hard compared to being a virtually powerless opposition.  Party 
stalwarts have called for the National Democratic Congress to 
refocus on the basics and start performing in a coordinated 
fashion.  The following are brief looks at events in Grenada in 
the early months of 2009 eight months after the National 
Democratic Congress won an eleven to four seat parliamentary 
majority with a little over 1800 votes on July 8, 2008. 
 
Sir Danny Vents 
 
¶2. (SBU) Sir Daniel Williams retired in November 2008 after over 
thirteen years as Governor General (GG) of Grenada.  When the 
NDC won the July 8, 2008 election, the new government got to 
pick `its' governor general and Sir Carlysle Glean was sworn in 
last November.  However, instead of allowing Williams to step 
down and fade away with dignity as previous governors general 
have done, NDC stalwarts stepped up attacks on him and his 
tenure as head of state, threatening to investigate nearly every 
government action he signed off on.  Following the same pattern 
the new government has used against all its perceived enemies, 
the attacks have been vicious and highly personal.  They also 
distorted the constitutional and primarily ceremonial role of 
the GG.  In a highly unusual response, Williams struck back in a 
February 26 press conference he called to respond to the most 
egregious accusations.  The former GG alternated between 
lawyerly explanations of the role of the governor general in 
government affairs and indignant and pointed reaction to his 
attackers' reliance on innuendo to blacken his reputation. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Initial public reaction to Williams' press conference 
was muted.  Many Grenadians expressed shock and embarrassment 
that he would submit himself to such indignity.  Journalists at 
the press conference were egged on by NDC supporters Grenada 
Today editor George Worme and lawyer/political gadfly Lloyd 
Noel; the questions were accusatory and the tone nasty.  After 
multiple rebroadcasts of the press conference over the last few 
weeks, the expressions of shame, horror, or on the other side, 
satisfaction, have given way to anger at the reporters who were 
clearly gunning for the former GG.  Commonly noted by post 
interlocutors was the lack of factual underpinning for the 
accusations combined with a deliberate misrepresentation by the 
questioners of the constitutional role of the GG.  Williams 
appeared to have calculated correctly that sympathy, once people 
realized the thinness of the accusations, along with the venom 
with which they were delivered, would be on his side. 
 
Police Officers Quietly Reinstated 
 
¶4. (SBU) Several Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) officers who 
were sent off on indefinite leave early in the new NDC 
government's tenure in the fall of 2008, have been quietly 
reinstated to positions of responsibility.  All the allegations 
of wrong doing have been dropped.  According to one officer, 
Commissioner of Police (COP) James Clarkson declined to make the 
vindication public, preferring to simply "let it go".  One 
officer Charge d'Affaires spoke with expressed anger over the 
COP's refusal to speak out after his very public savaging of the 
officers' characters, but said he would do his job to the best 
of his ability.  Indefinite leave is often used to ease public 
service workers out of the government and is understood by 
Grenadians to be the end of someone's career. 
 
Land Grab in Carriacou 
 
¶5. (SBU) Senator George Prime, Minister for Carriacou and Petit 
Martinique Affairs, announced in late February that there were 
people in Carriacou illegally living on state land, accused the 
former NNP government of handing it out willy nilly, and 
declared that the residents must all immediately move off that 
land until the issue was resolved.  Most of the people in 
question had been given the land by the government nearly ten 
years ago and had built homes and businesses on it.  The 
majority were paying the required rents, though a very small 
number had never bothered.  Public reaction to the announcement 
was swift and negative.  The decree would have impacted 20 - 30 
people, mostly poor or near poor.  Prime was met with catcalls 
and boos at his town hall meeting announcing the review.  The 
government has been scrambling ever since to find a solution 
that would not force the group off the land for an unknown 
period of time.  The residents feared - probably rightly - that 
once they vacated the properties, they would have a hard time 
getting them back. 
 
¶6. (SBU) By March 4, the government had announced the creation 
of a panel of three experts to review all titles to the land in 
question and figure out who really was in violation of the law 
(rumored to be no more than two or three people).  The panel met 
with disgruntled residents who greeted many of their statements 
with disbelieving hooting. 
 
Comment 
 
GRENADA 00000047  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶7. (SBU) Governing is hard work, as the NDC is finding out after 
being in opposition for thirteen years.  They used to be able to 
take potshots at the New National Party (NNP) ruling party 
without political consequences, including walking out of 
parliament en masse at every perceived slight.  In the giddy 
aftermath of winning, the party forgot that many voters did not 
support the NDC with their votes so much as deny the NNP a 
fourth term in office.  Having reneged on most of its campaign 
promises - for good reason as Grenada's public debt of 107 
percent to gross domestic product means there is virtually no 
room in the budget for new programs without either increasing 
the debt or finding grant assistance - the party also lost much 
goodwill in its first few months in office by harassing public 
service workers and for tossing many of the poor and near poor 
off public assistance programs, all for apparently partisan 
reasons.  Prime Minister Tillman Thomas could still turn things 
around if the party finally focuses on governing and stops 
trying to settling scores.  The 64 million dollar question is 
whether, and how quickly, he can bring his troops into line to 
deliver the cleaner and more transparent government he promised 
last summer.  End comment. 
MCISAAC