If as a political party you want to survive into a second and maybe into a third term, you have to ensure that your second term performance is no less as good as the Barbados Labour Party’s second term performance in (election year) 1981, as a worst case scenario, that it is as good as the Barbados Labour Party’s second term performance in 1999 and that it is definitely not what your second term performance was in 1991. The alternative is that you could very well easily become a one-term Government. – Peter Wickham, political analyst, at the DLP’s weekly lunchtime lecture, George Street, April 4, 2008.
Just four months after it won the general election of 2008, my learned and apposite colleague opposite, Peter Wickham, was warning members and supporters of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) that just a three percentage point swing in the vote was needed to change the Government next time.
Fast forward to 2011, and only four days ago, the same political pollster and analyst was again warning the DLP Government and the new Prime Minister Freundel Stuart of the lessons to be learnt from the defeat of Stephenson King and the United Workers Party (UWP) in St Lucia after only one term in office.
Wickham, pointing to at least three “compelling” parallels in the two countries, noted that just three percentage points separated the government from the opposition in both cases, when David Thompson and Sir John Compton won in Barbados and St Lucia, respectively.
Unfortunately, both of those duly elected leaders died “in office” and were replaced by men of less charisma.
“It should also be noted that neither King nor Stuart were elected previously and would be facing an election for the first time on their own whenever elections were called, and this is another similarity that we cannot ignore,” he said.
“Neither of them are charismatic individuals, and both of them pale next to the leader from whom they took over in terms of charisma; so the popularity factor is also there.
“There is also the question of tradition. Neither St Lucia nor Barbados has a tradition of one-term governments, and in the same way that King probably assumed that he had a second term, one assumes that Stuart thinks he has a second term put down somewhere.”
Wickham has also suggested that “a leader in this environment, since he can’t deliver the economic goods, he has to rely a lot more on charm and charisma to be able to convince people, and I don’t know that the way to approach the matter is to fly off to Australia, spend $250 000 and then not report to people what I did. I don’t think that it is the type of approach that will win friends and influence people in an environment of deprivation”.
Very pointed criticism, indeed, of Stuart’s recent attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit in?Australia – which was the source of some controversy – and his subsequent silence since his return.
The truth is that Wickham has not hidden his preferences for leaders on either side of the political divide, and Stuart is clearly not his cup of tea.
In his most recent analysis, Wickham implied that the DLP would still have “wriggle” room if it changed its leadership.
His comments pointed a finger squarely at the leadership of Prime Minister King in St Lucia and Prime Minister Stuart in Barbados, suggesting that the latter had to pick up his political activity if he wanted to retain his job in a year’s time – “sometime before the 15th of April, 2013”.
The fear arises out of the fact that the UWP served only one term in St Lucia, which is not the tradition.
If the serving of one term in St Lucia has implications for Barbados, as Wickham so pointedly declared, then we must step back to 2007.
General elections in St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago pre-dated the January, 2008 election in Barbados. At the time, the then opposition parties emerged victorious on the back of considerable promises and a slogan for change which resonated from the Obama campaign.
Having promised so much and delivered so little for various reasons, including the unfavourable international environment and questionable domestic policy choices, the political parties have other issues with which to contend.
The intolerance of the electorate for politicians making promises without reference to their capacity to deliver is one such issue.
While it is common to speak of the charisma of leaders, it is no longer that easy to identify Caribbean charisma in the political arena. It is always difficult to define, although it exists.
According to the sociologist Anton Allahar, who studies economic and political sociology in the Caribbean: “A special feature of charismatic leadership concerns the oratorical skills of the leader, where the emphasis is on form rather than content.”
And among Caribbean leaders, Fidel Castro, Forbes Burnham and Michael Manley stand out as exceptional orators and superb technicians of the word.
Allahar defined other features of charisma as “the willingness of the followers to obey unhesitatingly whatever the leader may order; to forgive the leader for old setbacks; and to acknowledge that extraordinary people who do extraordinary things must be given extraordinary leeway in realizing their mission”.
Notwithstanding all of that theorizing on charisma, the leader’s obligation is still to “deliver the goods”.
Perhaps in today’s increasingly impatient world, the electorate’s emphasis is on the delivery of the promises made.
The implied notion that an increasingly battered Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler is an option to allow the ruling DLP to “wriggle” out is simply a reflection of the known preference of the political analyst. It is fascinating that people would expect the very minister, who is now the face of the harsh budgets, the increases in VAT, electricity, food and the confusion at the National Insurance Board, to be a source of charisma.
The chances of the DLP led by anyone – Stuart or Sinckler – in the next election will be determined by an electorate on the basis of promises and performance.
If the swing is three or more percentage points, there will be a change in the Government, as Wickham has repeatedly insisted. If the swing is less, then obviously, there will be no change in the Government.
In the context of Caribbean politics, it is widely believed that governments lose elections. This belief is even stronger in an election coming after the government’s first term. In this sense, on the basis of performance, if the DLP were in its second term, the outcome of the next election would be a foregone conclusion.
The belief reinforces the importance of the recent loss of the UWP in St Lucia, after its first term, to the political machinations confronting Barbados between now and the next general election.
In every respect, it is a fascinating period of unprecedented political uncertainty, only because the chances of the DLP becoming a one-term Government are very real.