The Caribbean island of Barbados held general elections to choose a new government on January 15. The Opposition, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), was elected to office winning 20 of the 30 parliamentary seats and replacing the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) which had formed the government for 14 years.
As with every general election, many issues were thrown out to the electorate, but in reality only one mattered, and that was: should the Barbados Labour Party, led by Owen Arthur, continue in office for a fourth consecutive term.
The Barbados Labour Party gambled heavily on Arthur's personal standing as a leader. Its entire campaign - apart from two particular red herrings - focussed on Arthur's record as Prime Minister and it argued that Barbados' future would be better in the hands of a "tried and tested" leader.
The first of the two red herrings was an unsubstantiated allegation that the DLP would switch the country's diplomatic links from China to Taiwan in return for heavy election funding. The second was that the DLP would bring casino gambling into Barbados.
Neither issue gained any currency with the majority of the electorate. Both were quickly dismissed by the DLP despite the BLP's efforts to flog these two dead horses right up to the finishing line.
While wrapping its campaign package in Arthur's leadership cloak, the BLP did its best to try to present the leader of the DLP, David Thompson, as inept. They seemed not to know that Thompson's election strategists were bursting that bubble through a series of quiet public and private appearances by Thompson across the country in the last few months.
In any event, in the brief election campaign, Thompson acquitted himself creditably as a confident and capable person. And, the DLP made the point that it was not for a "one man government". It asserted that it had a competent team, and decisions would not be made by the leader alone.
All the polls before the election indicated that, in the area of leadership, great confidence was reposed in Owen Arthur personally and he had been adjudged to be ahead of Thompson in people's perception of his capacity to lead.
However, most of the polls also indicated that there was a strong desire in the Barbados community for a change. And, at the bottom line, only the BLP party faithfuls accepted the line that David Thompson was so bad that he would take the country to disaster.
For most people it seemed the greater motivation was "time for a change". The electorate went out in higher numbers than they have in recent elections, and they came down on the side of change.
A number of questions arise from the Barbados election. One of them is: should there be term limits for Prime Ministers? Clearly, the Barbados electorate felt that there should be notwithstanding the wide respect for Owen Arthur's work as leader.
Arthur himself has now left the office of Prime Minister on a low note. His party was badly defeated at the polls with him at the helm, and against a background of him telling the electorate to vote for BLP candidates in each constituency as if they were voting for him.
This was not how Owen Arthur should have left the prime ministership.
In his early years in office, he presided over a rebuilding of a shaky economy, albeit he had inherited from the previous DLP government the tightening-up that it had required. Barbados enjoyed real economic growth under his leadership and services industries grew.
The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) owes the establishment of the Single Market to his belief in it, his resolve to see it implemented and his hard work in doing so. No scholar now and in the future could do any less than associate the CARICOM Single Market fully with Owen Arthur. Generations to come will undoubtedly thank him for laying a foundation that will contribute most to the retention of Caribbean competitiveness in the global community.
Had Arthur demitted office in his third term and moved on to be Head of the CARICOM Commission to oversee the economic arrangements of the region, he would have left the Prime Ministership of Barbados on a high note, and given much appreciated guidance to the wider regional project.
A two-term limit for the office of Prime Minister would have extinguished ambitions for extensions, and provided for the identification and cultivation of new leaders within parties. The acrimonious debates over leadership which become confused with general elections would be eliminated. And, there would be nothing to stop a former prime minister from seeking office after an interregnum.
At the CARICOM level, the question that will arise is will the Barbados governments attitude to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) change with David Thompson and the DLP in government? I very much doubt it. The DLP is the party of Errol Barrow, a father of Carifta and CARICOM; its roots are firmly intertwined with regional integration. And, at a practical level, Barbados manufacturers continue to need the markets of the OECS countries, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica.
I expect that Thompson will be invited by his colleague CARICOM Heads of Government to carry the portfolio for the CSME that Arthur held with such distinction, and he will accept it and run with it.
Barbadians are solid people. The steady and peaceful development of their small island is testimony to their good sense. They changed the government because the party was too long in office. In doing so, they showed how little they themselves have changed their core values. |
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