ABSTRACT
René moved into the plural democratic space in 1993 with great advantages. The new party shape was something more akin to Tammany Hall or Sussex Street than the Kremlin or Forbidden City. Few political leaders have swallowed their pride with so little sign of indigestion. René did not appear overly worried or shame-faced when the circumstances of the early 1990s obliged him to revert to a political dispensation resembling the Mancham period. The opposition was initially tiny, and his lieutenants could be relied on to manage any criticism in the National Assembly away from his direct purview. The press being initially in regime hands helped this agreeable state of affairs. The end of 1993 saw René in excellent shape. He had crossed the shoals of a transition to democracy, was fully in control of the Executive and National Assembly, and had neutered Western international criticism that his regime was authoritarian.
