By Linley Winter
30th December 2025
“But, it’s Christmas!!” That’s what my friend of more than thirty years told me about three years
ago. My friend, now in her early seventies, debated with me the merits of the now seemingly
entrenched practice of political actors hosting parties for their constituents during the Yuletide
season.
Incumbent parliamentary representatives and their challengers have been suckered into thinking
that this is a necessary political rite of passage if one is to be elected to represent a constituency.
The ABLP initiated this depraved action and perfected it in the early 1990s. Subsequently, even
UPP politicians have followed suit.
Now, it seems that just about every candidate of every political stripe thinks it is a duty they must
perform to be deemed worthy as a politician. And this is not limited only to Christmas time. The
same tainted ethos influences the abundant giveaways at the start of each school year for some
time now.
You see, this approach to gaining and maintaining political control is not new, not in our region
or in world politics. Throughout the Roman Empire, this was a strategy employed to keep the
population under the control of the Caesar. Political observers and analysts termed it “Bread and
Circus”. The people were wined and dined and also entertained in various ways, such as
gladiators battling in the coliseums, or the people being treated to theatrical performances.
These activities kept the people distracted. They were less concerned about how fairly the State
was being governed. Questions about who benefited from financing the activities of those who
held power were hardly asked. And lurking somewhere behind the metaphorical curtains of
power were not just the financiers but also the enforcers – such as the Roman Legion which was
needed to enforce peace and literally impose the will of the Caesar.
In contemporary Antigua and Barbuda, many of the ruling party politicians, across
administrations, have perfected relegating many in the population to a dependent class. This
serves a useful political objective. It is evident among many who are employed, especially as non-
established workers in the public sector. A critical number of these workers are unfortunately
unable to discern that their allegiance and duty are to the State and not the politician who
facilitated their employment.
The don-type political culture, that has the political party candidate at the head of his/her party’s
apparatus in each constituency, also gives the candidate the position of chief dispenser of favours
– gifts, money, the opportunity to obtain land, jobs, et cetera.
Most people who are caught in this dependent trap are unaware that many of the politicians,
whom they adore and feel powerless in relation to, are often in a clientilistic relationship with
1some people in the business community. This simply means that that those with economic clout
will fund the political activities of one person and or group. Once elected, and especially if one is
part of the group that wins State power, the funder will benefit from preferential treatment of
one kind or another – like government contracts in which competitive bids are waived, or
concessions on taxes, et cetera.
These are achieved because the movers and shakers in the moneyed class often have easier
access to key actors in political parties. These power brokers in the moneyed class provide the
political actors with items, funds, et cetera, needed to ingratiate themselves to voters. And many
voters, in turn, perceive the political actors dispensing these favours as having supernormal
abilities in being able to meet an almost insatiable desire of the dependent class for free things
– the gifts at the Christmas parties, the food, the drinks, cash handed out here and there in
quantities large or small.
So we are caught in a degenerative cultural loop. In part, this is kept in place by the stout
resistance of our policymakers to develop and support the implementation of an age-appropriate
civics course throughout our school system.
Civics will expose students to and help enforce critical values like kindness, respect, and
tolerance. Our youth will also, over time, learn the importance of appropriate ethical practices in
the governance of any organisation – such as their school, voluntary organisations, and
government itself. Dishonest conduct, for example, will more likely have a higher chance of being
discouraged.
An immersion into a civics course will expose students to critical thinking, raise their self-esteem,
and give them the confidence to be assertive. It will also let them better appreciate their rights
in the State and their responsibilities to the State, as good citizens.
Therefore, when political leaders and their underlings promote their Christmas parties loaded
with give-aways of all sorts, people will in time ask critical questions. For example, who fund
these activities? Can these things, given their magnitude, be ordinarily afforded by the politician
hosting the event? Who gains from funding these events because people do not normally give
away anything of any sizeable value for free?
And when State resources are used to facilitate the delivery of these give-aways, as I observed in
Herberts three Christmas seasons ago, more people will reject them and refuse the give-aways
because they are an abuse of State resources for partisan gain. More of us will recognise these
practices as vile acts designed to manipulate the political thoughts and behaviours of the people.
A free and independent mind is a powerful weapon that people, whose singular objective is
power of any kind, fear.
The Christmas parties, the back-to-school give-aways of bags and stationery, have a similar
intent. They are used as instruments to gain political notoriety and advantage over one’s
opponent. These are not initiatives organised through a non-partisan body in a constituency in
2which the political actors are one of several people who, through their network of relationships,
get benefactors to support people in need.
The politicians are at the center of these developments. They are profiled as the “Father
Christmas” of the Yuletide season or the back-to-school give-aways, and so on. One must
question the sincerity of many of our politicians to improve the lives of the people they wish to
represent. Otherwise, why does someone wish to have their every action in the constituency
recorded – by audio, video, and still images, and then have them posted on social media or in
any other media space?
Ahhh, yes. Marketing you say. You must show what you do. My counter is that if your actions are
sincere, the overload of pictures and so on that we are subjected to, twinned with political
messaging, will be unnecessary.
Meaningful relationships can be built without exploiting people’s vulnerabilities. Issues-based
political engagements are necessary; and they are central to raising people’s general education
about, for example, how the State should be governed. These, for me, are the types of
engagements that should be mostly published above all others.
The more people reject the glib fantasy of the moment – the fete, the ham and turkey, the free
ticket here or there – the more they will expect better of all political actors. They will demand
that politicians come to them with practical policies and programs. They will demand that the
State’s resources are used equitably for the development of the State and the people. They will
demand that there are red lines which must never be crossed, or else the penalties will be severe
for the transgressors. It does not matter if they are politicians, government employees, or people
from the rest of the population.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of the Singaporean City State, implored the members of the
Singapore parliament, upon his retirement, to keep the country’s politics clean. Singapore is
about 284 square miles. That is almost the size of Dominica. The population is about six million
people. It has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. The investment in its human capital
development was deliberate and structured upon national development needs. Today, the level
their education excellence is ranked third in the world in 2025. Grift is sternly rejected throughout
the government service and country.
Antigua and Barbuda is 60% the geographical size of Singapore. Our population is probably about
1.7% of Singapore’s. A more enlightened population is an anchor to arrest, pun intended, anyone
who abuses the State’s resources or the trust reposed in them to manage prudently the resources
of the State and not bring their office into disrepute. We can be better. We must demand an end
to these potentially, and in some cases likely, venal pursuits predicated on making political
puppets of the people.
Instead of these Christmas parties and like bread and circus events, let us instead prioritise
national development policies that promote education and skills development in line with
3national needs from time to time. Let us prioritise the development of an entrepreneurial class
coached in good business practices. Let us demand, through legislation with appropriate penalty
clauses, that politicians serving in government can have no other source of income, but we must
pay them salaries commensurate with the work expected of them.
The momentary glee of and gifts obtained at the Christmas parties do not address the structural
deficiencies that make our political administrations less accountable to the Parliament. We must
demand constitutional reform that, for example, puts a cap on the number of people who can be
in the Cabinet from either house of Parliament. I support there being five from the House of
Representatives and three from the House of Senate. And we must support constitutional reform
that equates voting rights to citizenship rights. These are some of the things which a more
positive political culture will enable.
End the charade of these Christmas parties and like events. Refocus our political engagements to
issues that focus on people empowerment with a responsibility to the development of the State.
We deserve a better political ethos. Even in a competitive party system, we the people can
prioritize principle over political and pecuniary profits.
