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Légende du rugby français et du Stade Montois, Benoît Dauga a été l’un des hommes du premier Grand Chelem du XV de France en 1968 et restera comme l’un des…

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Légende du rugby français et du Stade Montois, Benoît Dauga a été l’un des hommes du premier Grand Chelem du XV de France en 1968 et restera comme l’un des…

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US Mid-term elections: a defining moment for the world 

By Sir Ronald Sanders 

(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States of America and the Organization of American States.   He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto) 

Democracy is at stake in the country that proclaims itself as the world’s bastion of democracy.

That is the judgement of no less a person than the President of the United States of America (US), Joseph Biden Jr.  The President made this riveting statement on November 2 in the heart of the Nation’s capital, Washington, DC.

Biden cited several incidents as evidence for his worrying statement.   These included an invasion of the home of the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and a savage attack by an intruder on her 82-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, who was struck in his head with a hammer.

Speaker Pelosi has been the target of far-right supporters of former President Donald Trump, who never formally conceded his overwhelming loss of the November 3, 2020 Presidential elections, and who is being investigated by a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives for his role in an invasion of Capitol Hill with the intention of stopping the formal acceptance of the elections result.   During the invasion, the rioters declared their intention to kill or main House Representatives, particularly Nancy Pelosi.

President Biden listed a long number of violations of democratic principles and values, including intimidation of early voters for mid-term elections to the Congress on November 8, and death threats to election officials and election workers in a number of states.   The President described this situation in the following stark terms: “This violence against Democrats, Republicans, and nonpartisan officials just doing their jobs, are the consequence of lies told for power and profit. Lies of conspiracy and malice, lies repeated over and over to generate a cycle of anger, hate, vitriol and even violence”.

Former President Barack Obama was sufficiently stirred by events that he felt constrained to return to the political hustings to express grave concern about “this erosion of just basic civility and democratic norms”.  He warned that “If the Republican candidates here are successful, Democracy as we know it may not survive in Arizona.”  And, he added, “That’s not an exaggeration. That is a fact.”

These circumstances are being played out in the US, not in a country with an immature democracy or a record of disregard for democratic principles of freedom, the rule of law and respect for justice.  Therefore, it is terrifying.   For, if democracy is overcome in the U.S. in favour of fascism and tyranny, it will quickly spread the world over with troubling consequences.

Apart from the erosion of democracy elsewhere in the world, and the encouragement that will be given to politicians with autocratic tendencies, the advent of far-right representatives taking control, or significantly influencing, policies and laws created by the U.S. Congress, has consequences for all developing countries.

It is well known, for instance, that Donald Trump and his supporters had little time for developing countries and developed no policies to engage with their development issues.  The description of some, mostly back States as “shit hole countries”, the manipulation of several of them in the narrow pursuit of his own political agenda, and the rejection of issues and institutions of vital importance to them caused great alarm.   Among the critical issues were the harmful impact of Climate Change and the withdrawal of funding from the World Health Organization.   The Trump posture remains, and, if anything, has been strengthened by the Republican candidates who are vying for office on November 8.

Right now the Democratic Party has control of the Senate in the U.S. Congress only because Vice President Kamala Harris has a casting vote.  The Senate is equally divided 50-50 between the Democrats and the Republicans.  At the mid-term elections on November 8, 12 Democratic-held seats and 23 Republican-held seats are being contested.  If the Democrats lose only one of their seats to the Republicans without winning two, the Senate will pass to Republican control.

The situation is worse for the U.S. House of Representatives, all of whose 435 seats are up for grabs.  The Democrats need to win 218 seats to maintain their majority.   They now have 221 to the Republicans 211.  It is only in recent days that polls are suggesting that the Democratic party could be victorious.

Should the Democratic Party lose control of the Congress, the Republicans would not only frustrate the legislative programme of the Biden administration, but they would also advance the policies that they favour, including selling guns; approving excessive behaviour by the police force; ending a woman’s right to choose abortions; closing U.S. borders to immigrants; introduce harsh measures for dealing with refugees to severely reduce programmes to help the poor.  Aid programmes to developing countries will also assume a transactional nature, rather than responding to developmental needs.

It is normal in every election for political parties and candidates to hold differing positions.  While it should not be acceptable, it has become par for the course that, in their attempt to win votes, parties and candidates spin the truth, exaggerate, and talk down their opponents.  However, in the run-up to these mid-terms, candidates of the extreme Republican right wing have been found lying, defaming, and preaching a toxic level of vitriol, including encouraging voter intimidation and tearing down institutions.

President Biden has also pointed out that, “there are candidates running for every level of office in America, for governor, congress, attorney general, secretary of state, who will not commit to accepting the results of the election that they’re running in. This is a path to chaos in America”.

In the context of all this, there is good reason to be alarmed about the threats to democracy in the U.S. and, as a consequence, to threats to freedom, democracy, and the rule of law everywhere.

These mid-term elections might well be a defining event not just for the U.S. but for the world in the struggle for supremacy between democracy and fascism.

Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com 

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FILE PHOTO: Petrotrin Refinery –

THE PRIVY Council has approved an award of $4.8 million for a local contractor for work done for Petrotrin on its platform and block station at its Soldado oilfield in 2004.

The company – A&A Mechanical Contractors – sued Petrotrin for $9.9 million. In 2014, Justice Ronnie Boodooingh ruled in favour of the company, but this was overturned in the Court of Appeal by Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca and Gregory Smith. They set aside the money orders and remitted aspects of the case for retrial. Then Justice of Appeal Judith Jones dissented, not agreeing with the majority ruling.

The company appealed to the Privy Council, which ruled on Thursday, ordering the payment of $4.8 million and setting aside the Appeal Court’s orders while also sending back to the High Court to consider whether interest should be awarded.

It also sent four claims by A&A Mechanical back to the court to consider for payment. The issues to be considered by the courts at all three levels involved the classification of “without prejudice” letters which the Appeal Court had found inadmissible.

In its evidence, A&A Mechanical said it tendered to provide steelworks to strengthen Petrotrin’s platform and block station for $26.8 million, It won the bid and began work in 2004. It said the contract allowed Petrotrin to instruct the company to carry out variations to the work, and it did so, but was not paid for them. A&A Mechanical said it was only paid the $26.8 contract sum and not for the “additional work.”

Petrotrin claimed these were not variations but were included in the work.

Some of these “variations” were sent back to the High Court by the Privy Council for determination.

In his decision, Boodoosingh rejected Petrotrin’s argument at A&A Mechanical’s case was statute-barred and rejected the proposition that a letter – agreeing to variations – was part of “without prejudice” negotiations. He said those were not negotiations for the settlement of a disputed claim but an integral step in finalising payments.

The Court of Appeal held that this letter was a “without prejudice” communication and was inadmissible. It also ordered the High Court to rehear the claim without the letters.

However, the Privy Council said the letters were admissible and in sending back portions of the claim also sent back for “rehearing” the evidence relatingto the meetings between the parties during negotiations for payments and the “without prejudice” letters, since the latter were correspondence forming part of the negotiating process for payment.

The Privy Council agreed with the Appeal Court’s finding on other variation claims, sending them back to the High Court to consider the evidence. The Privy Council judges held that Boodoosingh was wrong to find Petrotrin had failed to provide evidence on these claims.

A&A Mechanical was represented by Daniel Feetham, KC, Anand Ramlogan, SC, Rowan Pennington-Benton and Jared Jagroo. Petrotrin’s attorneys were Anneliese Day, KC, Prakash Deonarine and Odette Clarke.

Presiding over the appeal in the Privy Council were Lords Lloyd-Jones, Briggs, Leggatt, Burrows and Stephens.

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