The last few months have inspired a mood of reflection as it has been impossible not to ponder on life and the journey of life.
I live by the motto that success is a journey not a destination.
It was a typical summer’s afternoon in the month of July 26 years ago that I saw this tall, skinny, yet worthy-looking young man walking down Broad Street as I was heading back to work at the Central Bank of Barbados.
We stopped and greeted each other as fellow Combermerians with vastly different dispositions while at school.
He was destined to become Prime Minister of Barbados and I had missed my opportunity to represent Barbados in either football or cricket, although still in my mid-20s.
Just weeks before stumbling into each other, I was being paraded on the front page of the daily Nation for my accomplishment at the University of the West Indies, and having congratulated me, the young man proceeded to tell me: “Prepare yourself to become my economic adviser.”
I was indeed flattered. But ten years later, I was made an economic adviser to the Minister of Finance who happened to be the same young man who had requested it a decade earlier.
Our paths were fully joined and we enjoyed an understanding that saw my premature entry into politics; my surprising leap to the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and my eventual assassination at the altar of political expediency.
It was a journey that soon folded as friends quickly became foes, and loyalty was only perceived.
Having been socialised a “Dem” all of my life, the decision to go to the ministry was not a difficult one. It, however, turned out to be a career changing one as by August of 1994 I was being persuaded to contest an election.
The persuasion was left mainly to the current Minister of Finance who would seven years later be supportive of my effort to succeed Thompson as leader of the party in those very turbulent times. Much to the chagrin of Denis Kellman!
As the very last and late candidate to be selected, I lost the election as a more experienced and valued economist contested the seat and did very well for the National Democratic Party (NDP).
I accepted to sit in the Senate and within two years descended to the Lower House following a bye-election.
Three years later in 1999, the DLP suffered its worst electoral loss and I was a victim of the party’s instability – losing the seat narrowly.
The Member for St Lucy would later justify my loss as being better for the party in his usual twist of logical thinking.
I again occupied a seat in the Senate and two years later became the party’s president as Thompson resigned from the post as well as that of political leader. Kellman was never the same and still is not.
My elevation to presidency of the party came out of a doctrine of self-preservation. By the time of the 2003 general election, the party was fit enough to gain almost 45 per cent of the vote, seven seats and some narrow losses.
In spite of the vast improvement in performance, the two long-standing Members of Parliament voted for themselves as Leader of the Opposition.
The Member for St Lucy never attended parliamentary group meetings because of the location of the meetings.
Yet the first time I offered my resignation to the group in July 2005, he arrived at the same location two hours early. The other MP hardly attended meetings, and when he did, he hardly participated.
The twists and turns started with two letters received from Peter Morgan and Philip Greaves, strangely enough within days of each other and only seven months after the election of May 2003. They both reflected a jaundiced view of the political reality from a commonly prejudiced social perspective.
The journey continues; only the travellers have changed.
• Clyde Mascoll is a professional economist and former Government minister in the last Barbados Labour Party administration.
