Claude Skelton Cline
Outspoken talk show host Claude Skelton Cline has posited that unseen forces may be influencing the territory’s leadership and preventing national progress.
Speaking recently on his radio programme Honestly Speaking, Skelton Cline suggested that although the territory appears positioned for success, it continues to struggle to move forward — a pattern he believes cannot be explained by ordinary political dysfunction alone.
The commentator argued that certain authorities “practice transgression, to gain, and to maintain power,” stressing that such behaviour is not a one-time occurrence but a recurring issue within leadership structures.
“There are spirits — dark spirits, what you call jumbi — that are presiding over this country and its people,” Skelton Cline declared. “There are covenants and contracts and altars that have been erected over this terrain… and we have not been able to call it for what it is, identify it, and deal with it.”
According to him, this unseen influence has contributed to a cycle in which the Virgin Islands repeatedly come close to success but fail to achieve meaningful breakthroughs.
“We are a people of ‘almost’,” he said. “Always look like and seem like we’re getting there, but never get there. Can’t seem to break through.”
Skelton Cline suggested the issue manifests itself in decision-making at the national level, where otherwise rational individuals appear to act differently when placed in positions of collective authority.
“You have to wonder how otherwise smart, trained, college-degrees, common-sense, church-going folk — you can engage them one-on-one and stand in agreement — but when you put us together to make decisions in the interest of the entire country, a different spirit overtakes us,” he said.
To illustrate his concerns, the host pointed to the territory’s political landscape, arguing that the BVI effectively has only one functioning political party — the Virgin Islands Party (VIP) — which governs through a coalition after failing to secure enough seats to form a government on its own.
Even more troubling, he said, is that members who once supported a vote of no confidence later joined the same administration.
“This is not normal,” Skelton Cline said. “We are not fighting flesh and blood here.”
He also criticised the state of the opposition, noting that the National Democratic Party has struggled to reorganise since the 2019 elections and ran what he described as a “half-cocked campaign” in 2023.
“If you have a country where there is only one functional political party, that means the country is at a complete disadvantage, because the people do not have a viable option in which to choose,” he argued.
Skelton Cline is a well-known clergyman but is often dismissed in this capacity by several sections of the community who believe he is part of the same political class he frequently criticises.
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