By B. Roach and Kimmar Carney
See update: Meade officially retires – https://www.themontserratreporter.com/reuben-t-meade-official-tires-from-the-legislature/
Hon. Reuben Meade former Chief Minister.
The Hon. Reuben T. Meade, former Chief Minister and Premier and current Leader of the Opposition of the Montserrat Legislative Assembly has announced that he will retire shortly from “active elected politics.”
The current longest Montserrat serving politician will do so after being repeatedly elected to the Montserrat legislature since he entered politics in 1991, having served in the public service for a few years prior as head of the Development Unit, a post he was to abandon during his last stint as leader of Government 2009 – 2014. Despite his self-acknowledged ‘non-popularity’, he was returned to the legislature at every election after 1991. If he submits his resignation before November he would have served only days short of a full 25 years.
The two years-ago Premier made the retirement announcement while addressing his Movement for Change and Prosperity (MCAP) loyalists, stalwarts and supporters at the Credit Union Hall, Wednesday night, October 19, 2016. He made his announcement and his ensuing speech, during which he at times was emotional to tears, that spoke to his continuing involvement and support to the party going into the future.
Meade 62, retained his seat in the 2014 general election, when he lost the premiership and his Movement for Change and Prosperity (MCAP) lost in a landslide victory, 2-7, to the hardly settled ill prepared People’s Democratic Movement (PDM).
He began by joking that for a moment he thought he was “sitting through his funeral”. His colleague and the only other MCAP member in the legislature, the Hon. Easton Taylor-Farrell had introduced him outlining his service to Montserrat.
“Let me start off very early by saying,” he continued, “I am finished. I am retiring from active elected politics – because I think I have hit the wall…” suggesting he is leaving as it seems he has become the stumbling block to the progress of government business. “You cannot continue to conduct business in this country by focusing on a single individual…I have had enough,” he said.
He then immediately moved on “to dispel a rumour. “People are of the view that I am leaving Government because I had a case against the government and I lost the case…it is as a result that I am leaving because of money. Let me make this abundantly clear, In December of 2014, a cheque of $382,000 was deposited to my account at the Credit Union and I immediately wrote to Mr. Queealy and said to him there was an error, could you send that money back to the treasury.”
Choking back tears with some difficulty, Meade was soon to say: “I have served this country for 25 years…As a leader of this country I lost my two children, and I don’t think I can go any more, not with this group that are there. Everything that happen in this country, because Reuben Meade did it, we have to get rid of it.”
He would later vow to avail himself to the party’s supporters and hopefuls and by extension the people of Montserrat, “I will be there to ensure that the Government of Montserrat deliver what they are supposed to deliver because I will still be on ‘View Point’ along with the guys pushing what we have to do.”
“When we’re moving forward as a party, I am not leaving Montserrat, I’m not leaving MCAP, I’m not leaving active politics because there are some issues that I’m going to go down fighting and I will go to court even if I have to pay for it myself. I will be available to support this grouping. I will be there to ensure that this government delivers what they’re supposed to deliver because I will still be on viewpoint along with these guys pushing the things that we need to do.”
The Opposition Leader is expected to make firm his retirement from ‘active elected politics’ and his resignation from the Legislative Assembly at its next sitting, rumoured for next week.
Referring to his relationship with previous chief ministers, naming ‘his friend’ John A Osborne deceased and David S. Brandt, he had said: “I have hit the wall, and if anybody followed the Legislative Assembly over the last few sittings you will recognise that I say absolutely nothing, absolutely nothing.”
This time he has made an official announcement to a party gathering, but it is not the first time he has hinted at retiring. In 2001 following his failure to win the first government under the “Nine X system” he made several ‘unofficial’ announcements that he was going to quit politics. He had suggested then that Roselyn Cassell Sealy who had received far more votes than he did would have become the next and the first female Chief Minister in Montserrat.
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