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First timers at the polls
From
The Chronicle
of 14 Jan, 2000
RETIRED Trade Union Executive Kirtist Augustus faces the electorate on January 31, flaunting a distinguished regional and international labour movement career and vowing to return Roseau North to the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) fold.
"I believe I can bring back that constituency. In fact, I am working hard to ensure I bring back that constituency to the Freedom Party," said the 52-year-old ex-trade unionist, making his entry into national electoral politics almost 30 years after taking up an appointment as general secretary of the militant Waterfront and Allied Workers' Union (WAWU).
He promises to bring to Dominica's politics his knowledge, experience and exposure with the WAWU and the Caribbean Congress of Labour (CCL), where he was until 1998 its longest serving chief executive officer.
"One thing that will stand out in both instances is the question of team work and partnership. That was the central feature," said the former CCL's CEO and secretary treasurer.
"Whatever is to be achieved in the constituency cannot be achieved by me as lone ranger. I will have to be working with a number of people and will have to bring together the collective experience of those people for the benefit of the constituency . . .
"Only in that way the challenges of the constituency will be dealt with" said the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) candidate, contesting what until 1995 was regarded as a Freedom Party stronghold.
Allan Arnold Guye (2,259 votes) won Roseau North from the Labour Party's Henry Dyer (1,893 votes) in a two-way contest in the 1985 general election. He repeated the victory in 1990 polling 1,474 votes to beat Garnet Didier of the United Workers' Party (UWP - 1, 181), Joseph Jean Pierre (Dominica Labour Party - 154) and Elaine Baptiste (Dominica Progressive Party - 16).
But Roseau North slipped from the Freedom Party's hold in 1995 when Guye retired from electoral politics, was replaced as the Freedom Party candidate by Henry Dyer, the former Labour Party contender, who lost the seat by 131 votes to Julius Timothy of the UWP.
Roseau North, with more than 5 000 registered voters, is not only numerically, the largest of Dominica's 21 constituencies but is also a microcosm of the socio-economic complexion of this Caribbean Nature Island.
At one end of the economic pole is the affluent Goodwill community. At the other end are the one-time squatter settlements of Fond Cole and Tarish Pit - people of different expectations and aspirations.
Augustus believes his major challenge will be trying to meet the wishes of that diverse constituency. But he has made it clear that whatever he does, in terms of political representation, will be based on consultations with the people of the various areas.
The elections candidate, read like a parochial shopping list, the requirements of Roseau North, ranging from sidewalks and gutter coverings at Goodwill, rebuilding and strengthening a section of the road between Goodwill and Bath Estate and sanitation and skips at Yam Piece.
He also talked about elevating the status of fisherfolk at Fond Cole and encouraging them to invest in that industry.
Asked whether he did not believe that sidewalks and drainage systems were too domestic and ought to be left to the attention of Local Government, the ex-trade unionist agreed the time has come to lift the level of representation in Dominica beyond tar roads and stand-pipes politics but he added: "You must never forget those areas.
"If you set your target and your standard at areas that those persons cannot relate to, then you're in serious trouble. You are there to be of service to those persons and if there is a perception that you are not giving that service, you are dead . . .
"So you need to have those basics but also you need to try to elevate that. Now, that can be done through the process of education . . . it can be done through the whole area of economics . . . but as I said, it would be necessary to regularly consult with your constituents. That will give you the benefit of their views and once you represent their views then you are the servant of those persons," said Augustus, who served the regional labour movement for a record 17 years, 15 as its chief executive officer.
The DFP election candidate joined the Dominica Postal Service as a Registration Clerk upon graduating from the Dominica Grammar School in 1968. He swiftly moved up the ranks to Money and Postal Order clerk, then to cashier, leaving the service in 1970 to become general secretary of WAWU. He was given leave from that trade union organisation to serve as the regional level as assistant secretary and education officer of the CCL. He was elected CCL's CEO and secretary treasurer in November 1983.
He also served as a senator in the first Parliament of Dominica as an Independent State and represented WAWU on the Board of the Housing Development Corporation and Industrial Relations Tribunal.
What he brings to electoral politics, though, is a flair for organisation and team work that had its genesis in his early days as a Dominica public servant.
He intends to make people the focus of his representation in Parliament and to intimate to policy makers that it is necessary to have "a people's perception of whatever process we are going to be deciding upon, whether it is in the area of the environment; whether it is economic development - all those have to have people at the centre and must redound to the benefit of the people.
"What I'm going to be doing is conversing the views of the people: the workers of the country, the employers' organisations, the NGOs and try to see how much I can package the views that I've got from them into the decision of Government.
"This is the way I think I will be approaching it," the Roseau North contender declared.
On his return home the Caribbean Congress of Labour last year, Augustus had suggested as press interview that he was not considering entering the political arena.
But those in his constituency challenged his national commitment and demanded that he reviewed and changed his thinking.
"I reviewed it. I asked for God's guidance, consulted with my family and then made the decision that I would run," said the elections first timer, who made his political commitment at the Freedom Party conference in May/June last year.
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