I do not usually use this space to respond to what readers say about what I write since the overwhelming majority is usually positive and by telephone calls or emails.
When, however, a reader exercises his democratic right to comment in the Press, I exercise my right of reply in this space.
In last Sunday’s column, I focused on comments made by Minister of Health Donville Inniss accusing Opposition Leader Owen Arthur of “cherry-picking” a constituency for Mr Clyde Mascoll, which he described as “nauseating arrogance” and total disrespect for the party and electorate.
I also referred to Douglas Leopold Phillips’ column referring to the “very democratic process involving the views of the rank and file . . . who are allowed to have a say. Their voice is given expression by a vote for or against a person of choice”.
Against that background, I took issue with the fact that in Christ Church West and St James North, candidates who attracted five votes and no votes, respectively, were named as Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidates by the party’s executive council in preference to candidates who garnered 86 and all 15 votes. That did not impress me as being a democratic process based on the views of the rank and file.
An Algernon Atherley, writing in the MIDWEEK NATION, accused me of failing “to inform the public that no branch of the DLP has the power to select any candidate”. According to him, all candidates are selected in accordance with its constitution and are selected after consultation with branches before ratification by the general council.
I thank Mr Atherley for the information which led him to conclude that “democracy is alive and in good health in the DLP”. I am not familiar with that party’s constitution but cannot be deviated from my position that what took place in Christ Church West and St James North was classic “cherry-picking” rather than healthy democracy.
Mr Atherley, the rank and file of the two constituency groups had their say and made their choices in what I am reassured were fair and democratic election processes. Their choices were turned over by the autocratic general council.
If in an incestuous, in-house selection process a candidate can only attract five votes against another’s 86 and another candidate gets no votes at all and they are then “cherry-picked” to face the wider electorate, it would be extraordinarily brave to wager they will not lose their deposits when entire constituencies, opposition strongholds, cast their votes.
But luck was not on Mr Atherley’s side. In another letter on the same page under the caption Mr Rolerick Who For St Thomas?, a Mr Anthony Kellman also took up Minister Inniss for charging that Mr Arthur is attempting to “cherry-pick a safe seat for Clyde Mascoll”.
This writer has asked the voluble minister to confirm or deny that “the same cherry-picking has occurred within the Democratic Labour Party in the constituency of St Thomas without so much as informing the branch before ratification”. According to Mr Kellman, members of the branch and other constituents have written venting their anger over the cherry-picking of Mr Rolerick Hinds.
Despite all the talk that “democracy is alive and in good health in the DLP”, Mr Kellman makes the alarming allegation that the selected candidate “has never visited the branch nor has he ever been seen in the constituency . . . . We the constituents of St Thomas became aware of Mr Hinds’ selection when it was reported in another section of the Press”.
He makes the further point that the executive “is only given the authority to select a candidate after it has consulted with the branch”. Was there any consultation or was Mr Hinds surreptitiously cherry-picked? And Mr Kellman asked whether the Prime Minister or Mr Inniss is “aware of the disrespect suffered by the electorate of St Thomas”.
How can constituents who feel disrespected by their party’s hierarchy be expected to run with their flag, support and canvass for its candidate who allegedly, so far, has never visited the branch or been seen in the constituency? Perhaps Anthony Atherley’s twisted thinking will see this as another demonstration that “democracy is alive and in good health in the DLP”.
Christ Church West, St James North and now St Thomas are rancid displays of the most nauseating arrogance I have ever heard of after following Barbadian politics for more than 50 years, and go a long way to help the ruling party make a mockery of the word “democratic” in its proud title.
One can only imagine how the founding fathers of the DLP and those who wrote its constitution, proud architects of Barbadian democracy, theoretically and in practice, must be ruing these demonstrations of what has entered the political vocabulary as “cherry-picking” but in reality is much worse.
