By Kennedy Earle Clarke — 19 May 2022
Dear reader, there are those who fought valiantly for the right to determine how their country should be governed. Many lost their lives, many were imprisoned, many were maimed for life fighting for this human right to be enjoyed by the ordinary working class. Do not sell that right for a mess of pottage to anyone, for you will be degrading yourself and insulting those who fought so valiantly for you to enjoy that human right. In 1937 there was a form of elections but only those who owned property or worked for a certain salary were granted the right to vote. When Adult Suffrage was introduced in 1952, those who were privileged to enjoy that human right balked at the idea of it being enjoyed by those whom they once enslaved.
Prior to 1935, and some 17 years after in 1952, the struggle for the Working Class was conducted by the Workers League formed in 1932 by Mr. Thomas Manchester, which later became the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Trades and Labour Movement in 1940. It was an uphill battle for the Labour Movement to get the right to vote for the Working Class who were in the majority. How then can you now come and sell that human right for a drink of rum, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, or for any price? Brother Nelson Mandela spent 27 years (June 12th 1964 — February 11th 1990) fighting for the right of his Black South African Brothers and Sisters to be able to vote in the land of their birth. How then can you now turn and insult those who fought so gallantly in the 1935 Buckley’s Estate Uprising for a mess of pottage?
Prior to 1965 the right to vote was fair and cheap. When PAM, which is affiliated to the right-winged Republican Party in the USA, emerged on the political scene, they began offering bribes for your vote. Those who attempt to bribe you for that right to vote care nothing about you — you should report them, for they are insulting your humanity. The representatives whom the people have elected must give account of their tenure in office to those who voted for them. It is high time that we the electorate send the message that it is we who gave them the job to serve our interest and that they are accountable to us. We, the Electorate are the bosses, for without our votes, they could not be in office. Let the elections of 2022 be fair and free of bribes. Slavery has been abolished since 1838 and you are not “FOR SALE ANYMORE!!”