Henry’s fall

from favour

By Ljsa Williams

Like two other knights of the Commonwealth who have led the Cook Islands before him. Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Henry is finding the fall from political and public favour a

noisy one.

For Henry’s uncle Albert, the fall from grace came close on the heels of the court ruling that he used public monies to fund the fly-in voters of the 1978 elections. Sir Thomas Davies had even less time to cope with the shock of being biffed from par liament - he suffered a vote of no-confi dence from fellow parliamentarians in 1987.

For Henry, the warnings are in the air.

Calls for him and his government to step down are common as he and his cabinet, halfway through a second term in office, admit things are a whole lot worse than

they look.

With revelations that Treasury has jbeen dipping into money held in trust by government to the tune of a current liabil ity of more than $lO million, and no way for it to come up with redundancy pack ages for those it needs to send home, some who have retired as per the 60-year age limit are beginning to grumble that they have yet to commence Superannuation payments.

In its first major move, the 15 per cent paycut to government employees in March exploded into a wave of public reaction which had Henry’s own political caucus up in arms at the lack of consulta tion, and saw 12 members of his cabi net/assistant ministers signing a letter agreeing the resignations of Henry and his three most senior ministers should be dis cussed.

But while party secretary and Works Minister Tom Marsters led the charge and coped with most of the ensuing flak, he later denied there had been any talk of a coup, saying the media, both local and

international, had gotten it all wrong.

The fact of the signed letter seemed to be ignored, but it also serves as a reminder to Henry that even in his cabi net, he has to watch his back.

What he does have going for him is the fact that the other Cook Islander who seems to have the political nous to oppose him as a leader is Norman George - and he is far short of holding a majority in the house. Even overseas leaders in the region observing the crisis have to agree that Henry is head and shoulders above the rest of his political collegues, even if that power has perhaps allowed him more space to get the country into the mess it is currently in.

But in his own ranks, Henry is living on borrowed time because of the huge mess.

“It’s only the unity of the party that is keeping cabinet together,” says one minis ter, “I think we had a chance and lost it, and there’s just no one left to inspire our confidence as a leader to take us out of this.”

That kind of comment, even made in private to a reporter, would have been unheard of in 1989 when Henry’s govern ment swept into power. With the next elections in 1999 deciding who takes the Cooks into the next millennium, newly elected opposition leader Norman George is firmly set on what he wants and exact ly who he wants to be. The bad times that drove his cabinet out in 1989, looks ready to pave his way back in, if he can con vince voters seeking fresh direction that he won’t serve more of the same old mould.

And with the ruling party’s general

meeting coming up next month, it’s unlikely that supporters disenchanted with lower pay-packets, fewer jobs, and the new move away from “jobs for the

boys” thinking are going to enthusiasti

cally vote in the leader who can’t make the pain go away. ■