Prime minister Freundel Stuart remains the consummate stoic: enduring the pain and hardship that go with political leadership without showing feeling of hurt, or without complaining. Indeed, he is philosophical about the stormy period he is presumably going through.
Presumably, for the Prime Minister is not losing sleep over the persistent reports that there is discontentment among party colleagues about his leadership style. Stoical as ever, Mr Stuart has said he expects differing views on leadership styles and approaches, for “as long as you have a situation where you have living persons . . . there will be differences of opinions on differences of approach”, which he argues has always played out in the Democratic Labour Party “over time”.
This was certainly his view before he was presented with a letter by an Eager Eleven of his comrades on Saturday requesting an urgent audience. And what was the immediacy about?
A “growing concern”, said the note, “among supporters of the Government and our party, with respect to perceived weaknesses in our leadership of the country, and a sense of drift and inertia”.
The signatories were of elected Members of Parliament hoping to discuss with the Prime Minister “matters of grave concern to us, as well as to chart a path forward for the retention of our party in Government”.
It is no understatement that the Democratic Labour Party needs strong leadership to resolve the conflicts within its ranks and prepare it for the next general election. And no less an understatement is that effective and successful leadership calls for more than a tad of “popularity”.
If indeed there is a move afoot to change the head of leadership in our present administration, his replacement must be of the mettle and capacity to which we as a country are traditionally accustomed, and what the region and the rest of the world would expect.
It is not to be lost on us that St Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony, like many other such personages elsewhere, holds that Barbados has had a powerful tradition of politics in which there have been “leaders who have been able to express themselves with incredible lucidity and sophistication”.
And as importantly, our country’s leader – whoever it may be – has an enduringly big job ahead to improve teamwork and stick to the task assiduously – with much more substance than form – in pulling us out of our economic quagmire.
It comes as no accident that a CADRES poll, on the heels of Prime Minister Stuart’s weekend utterances, strongly shows Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler, as the preferred leader.
Whether or not there is a meeting with the Prime Minister and the Eager Eleven, damage control will now be an essential ingredient of the recipe for the DLP Government’s continued survival and acceptance by the people into the next general election.