With an election 18 months away, and with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart having placed his seal on the administration, the battle lines have been drawn.
After three and a half years in office, the “character” of the administration has been firmly set, and it is unlikely that anything new will happen to reshape the Government afresh. Nor will time cooperate with such an aspiration.
It is now possible to analyse the battle lines along which the next general election may be fought.
Given the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) 1994 collapse through International?Monetary?Fund (IMF) austerity, a key concern of the 2008 administration was to bury the ghost of economic failure which had since blighted the party’s image.
One of the unfortunate realities for the DLP was that its re-emergence coincided with the global recession of 2008. Sadly, the recession continues to bite, as highlighted in the ill-timed Moody’s downgrade.
In effect, therefore, the entire term of the DLP has been spent on managing the impact of a global economic crisis, not to mention the death of its popular leader. DLP strategists will now be forced to build a campaign, not on how much they advanced Barbados’ development, but on how effectively they have managed a crisis.
In a perfect world, the new character of the DLP was to have been the strength of its social policies. That was the basis of the Barrowesque appeal of the party and around which its dominant mass base could coalesce.
Tantalising hints were seen in free bus rides and in housing. A continuation and enlargement of more pro-poor policies in health and education would have fulfilled expectations, especially if the price of food and other living expenses had been capped.
Global economic reality, however, has thwarted progressive social ambition. The DLP, therefore, has been forced to limit the social sector, and cut off its main supply line of goodwill to its own mass base. Given the unlikelihood of a rapid economic turnaround, DLP strategists will need a sound plan to soothe bruised expectations.
In such a context, an expected response will be to put the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP)?on the back foot. For certain, the Arthur-Mottley split will provide good distraction from the economy.
In 2008, perceptions of BLP mismanagement were carved in the public consciousness, to bury the image of Arthur as the economic saviour, and accountability and transparency systems were promised. Given the economic stagnation, the DLP would be well advised to fulfil these promises.
Images, however, have been fully established. For the election, the BLP will make the economy its main platform issue, while the DLP will remind the public of Arthur’s sins from 2008, and rely on the expectation of a historically automatic second term.
With outlines drawn, the rest are details. Future history will complete the picture.
