The breaking news of last week was the reported disarray in the Peoples Acton Movement. It was a report of conflict treachery and expulsion, presented to the media by Mr. Dwyer Astaphan.

Ironically, while some of the details of Mr. Astaphan's story are true, the most important features were far from the truth and it seems that he delivered his account without direct reference to any of the people who were intimately involved in the conflict.

It is true that there was a conflict and it is true that five of the candidates in the last election had asked that the leader of the party, Mr. Lindsay Grant step down from his position at the head of the Peoples' Action Movement.

The scenario of this development needs to be published since it differs from the account which reached the public last week.

The conflict between the leadership and the majority of the election contestants did not arise out of the blue. It was an ongoing, festering problem which arose first between Glenroy Blanchette and Lindsay Grant and spread to other members of the hierarchy.

It seemed that Blanchette insisted on raising questions about Grant's leadership style to the chagrin of the leader. Blanchette's view of the leader of the Party is that of a Standard bearer rather than a dictator, but in his opinion Grant tried to run the Party as if it was his own personal fiefdom.

Blanchette's contention was buttressed by support from Bernie Welsh, who also contended that there should be transparency in the matter of campaign finance. There is a rule that campaign contributions and the donors of these contributions should be a private matter for the financial Controller.

This rule, while it protects the identity of firms and individuals who support the Party with monetary contributions it can compromise the conscience of the Candidates who have committed to the service of their country. Welsh insisted that the identity of the donors should be known to the candidates to assure them that the contributions are clean and that should the Party win the elections, they would not be surprised later by any inordinate demands from powerful, rich and ruthless donors closing in for their pound of flesh.

There is also the risk that unscrupulous fraudsters might become involved in the politics of this small vulnerable nation. Openness with the candidates would allay those understandable apprehensions, and the Leader's reluctance to accede this demand gave his colleagues a sense that they were not considered worthy of the trust of the Party.

Now these gentlemen are not little boys by any usage of the term. These are highly educated mature young men, who could hold their own at any leadership position in their respective fields of life. Anyone of them is as capable in his field as Grant is in his and any assumption that Grant's legal training makes him superior to the engineer, mathematician, crisis manager and airline pilot, is a false and dangerous assumption

To treat them as if they are not trustworthy was a basic insult.

But little boys were how they were constantly made to feel by the actions of the Leader. The secrecy rule notwithstanding, Mr. Grant had full knowledge of the source of funds and made the decisions on how the funds were to be spent Perhaps this concession to Grant was because he was perceived to be carrying much of the financial burden of the campaign .

The five candidates questioned this situation and thought that campaign financing should involve everybody connected to the party. The practice of a political leader carrying the financial burden of the Party soon gives way to the idea that the Party belongs to the political leader, that things should always go his way and that he should remain the Party leader forever.

The distribution of T-shirts and the release of the Manifestos were sore points. Most of candidates were quite dissatisfied with how these matters were approached,
especially with respect to the manifestos.

Although they were supposed to be selling the Party's polices to the electorate, some of the candidates were not given copies of the manifesto until the eleventh hour.
The crisis of leadership of the Party had become so acute that Engineering graduate Bernie Welsh decided to withdraw from the campaign and only changed his mind in the interest of a show of solidarity during the campaign.

The Marriott Affair hit them like a bazooka and Grants attempt to pre-empt disaster with his own version of the event did little to prepare them for the spectacle of their leader bargaining for a bribe. The scandal left them reeling, their heads spinning with many unanswered questions.

Grant's mysterious disappearance after the General Elections was a cause of worry among his colleagues. It was almost as if at a critical moment in the party's fortunes the leader was nowhere to be found.

After the elections they prepared to deal with the crises of Grant's leadership. They thought they would get a chance to do so at the caucus which was constitutionally due in April-May but arbitrarily postponed to July.

Grant's fellow candidates decided that he had become a liability and that he should exit the leadership in the interest of the party. They co-signed a letter in that vein and delivered it to the Party Chairman. They assured him that it was the only copy produced and requested that he gave them a copy which he did. They were assured of the confidentiality of the document.

They were surprised, however that they were summoned to meet Executive; to discuss their loyalty to Grant in the presence of the general gathering. What appeared to have happened was that someone loyal to Mr. Grant had made several copies of their letter and summoned a group of supporters of Lindsay Grant to defend him in what was supposed to be a confrontation.

Confrontations and conflicts are a regular feature of political parties in any democracy. In Britain, the world's oldest democracy, conflicts with parties are as old as the parties themselves. Some of the greatest statesmen of Britain were products of conflict. One of the greatest Winston Churchill crossed the floor and back again as often he found it necessary to do so on his way to the leadership of the Conservative Party. Margaret Thatcher the unbeatable Conservative leader was challenged by her colleagues while she held office.

Once in Barbados, a Government was formed from the splinters of a variety of parties.

In St. Kitts-Nevis we have become accustomed to the timely bickering within the Labour party from its inception until today.

Conflicts are a demonstration of democracy in action. They are a peaceful engine of change, renewal and progress. They happen because human beings are selfish, greedy, possessive and on the whole reluctant to accept change when change involves giving up some treasured position in a political party, a club or a friendly society.

But change is inevitable for organizations to reach new levels of achievement and maturity.

It happened already in the people's Action Movement. When Dr. Herbert leader of the Party, which he founded had led his party through three consecutive defeats, there was a lot of grumbling undercover ,that he should step down and give someone else a chance to try.

It was an emotional scene that Sunday afternoon when Billy Hebert gave way to Kennedy Simmonds, Richard Caines was even more emotional. After his third failure he also gave way, with tears which moved the audience.

These two men knew that for them it was time to go.

They faced the inevitable with resignation and continued to support the Party.
By the next election they saw the fruit of their years of toil and sacrifice when the People's Action Movement won the seats made vacant by the passing of both Bradshaw and Southwell They also captured Fitzroy Bryant's seat.

If these five gentlemen feel that the Party should re-invent itself with a view to its own survival, they are doing what has often been done in the past. And if it is five versus one, the one should lose and the five must win. Trying to expel five from the party is ludicrous and ridiculous

Each of them has more than a nominal stake in the future of the Party.

Each of them, having made huge personal sacrifices for the party, deserves better from their Party than the spread of scandalous rumors that they lowered themselves to go to Dr Douglas to sell themselves for money and jobs.