June 16/2003: -The next general election will be in effect a two-party race between the Dominican Labour party (DLP) and the United Workers party (UWP) because the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) is virtually dead, DFP officials and political observers have concluded.

      “It looks more dead to me than alive,” a long time DFP insider told the Sun while discussing the party’s health. “There’s not too much life in the party right now. It’s just a party on a shoe string.”

      “The term to describe it is moribund. I think that it is dead,” stated Dr. Lennox Honychurch who, in the mid-1970s, was intimately involved in helping nurse the DFP to prominence.

      “Essentially, even if there is a (Dominica) Freedom Party, you are looking at a two-party race. I cannot see the effort being made to revive it in time for the general election. The difficulty of finding 21 candidates is overwhelming; so overwhelming that it will be unlikely,” added Honychurch.

      The DFP had its worst showing at the polls in 20 years in the last general election, winning just two seats, one by fewer than 10 votes. Since then its problems have continued to mount.

      Questions remain about the ability of party leader Charles Savarin to effectively motivate supporters while he remains a member of Pierre Charles’ cabinet, and even worse, the DFP is broke, making it next to impossible to engage in any eye-catching activity.

      “People want to see the party on the move. Some people, because they no longer see the kind of activity that we did in the past, they believe that the party is no longer alive,” said Johnson Boston, the general secretary, who along with a handful of DFP diehards, is trying to remain positive.

      “Nothing much is happening. We are sitting here basically in limbo with virtually nothing to do. Maybe that is why people are saying that the party is dead because we cannot campaign other than to support the coalition,” added Swanston Carbon, an executive member of the party.

      “It is money that counts in elections. If you have money you can move mountains. You can do virtually anything. Last election the Freedom Party struggled because we did not have the finances that the other parties had. If we find ourselves in the position where we don’t have the money like last election, we can see ourselves on the sidelines. The question is ‘where is the money coming from?’” he asked rhetorically.

      It is a question that no one in the DFP seemed able to answer. In the 2000 election the party received just about four thousand votes, and membership has continued to dwindle since. The few members who trickle in to pay dues contribute EC$5.00 annually, while sitting members of parliament put in ten percent of their salaries.

      “And that is very small,” complained Boston.

      The DFP was in a similar situation following the 1975 general elections. Having lost two general elections, its supporters were disillusioned and many thought that there was no way forward.

      However, people like Honychurch, Kelvin Francis, Rupert Sorhaindo and others were brought in to help energise the membership and turn the party around.

      “It took a lot of sacrifice and there is not that sacrifice today,” said Honychurch.

      Also, the DFP is now part of a coalition government, with its two most senior officers, party leader Charles Savarin and chairman Herbert Sabroache, sitting in cabinet.

      Carbon said that the arrangement has taken away the party’s independence, further complicating matters.

      “ The Freedom Party is being sacrificed with both our political leader and the chairman being ministers in the coalition. The coalition government is dominated by the Labour Party and as a result of the position that we are in it absorbs with it our independence,” complained Carbon.

      “So both should resign their (leadership) positions in the party, giving us an opportunity to regain our independence,” he added.

       “When you have the chairman and the political leader in the coalition and you go down to the wire, how can you divorce yourself from the good or the bad of the government? How can they move the party forward?” quizzed another party insider who spoke to the Sun on the usual condition of anonymity.

      Carbon said that he raised the issue at a delegates conference six months after the coalition government came into power, suggesting that someone else be allowed to lead the party.

      However, he said that “the ranks of the Freedom Party didn’t see the necessity to do that. I think they are very satisfied with the position that we are in.”

      It is a position that could leave supporters with few options come next election, stated Honychurch.

      “I suppose all those silent Freedomites would end up probably voting for the Labour Party, if they vote at all, because they would find themselves in a position similar to the 2000 election but even worse in terms of figures. It may be easier for people like Savarin or Sabroache to put their support behind the Labour Party rather than trying to revive the Freedom Party,” he surmised.