The recent CADRES poll has brought Barbadians face to face with the horrible, nightmarish quality of their political situation. A mere four years after the Barbadian people decisively rid themselves of a 14-year-old Barbados Labour Party (BLP) political administration that was taking the country down a path of national betrayal and indignity, they are being forced to flee from the ineptitude and indifference of the succeeding Democratic Labour Party (DLP) administration.
The many political sins of the Owen Arthur administration would still be fresh in the minds of the vast majority of Barbadians – its self-negating economic strategy of selling off the precious lands and national institutions of Barbados; its virtual abandonment of the Barbadian producers of physical goods – farmers and manufacturers; its complicity in transforming Barbados into a playground for the rich and famous; its accommodation of the concept of “two Barbadoses” and its abandonment of the Barbadian people to the predatory prices of the merchant class.
Yet, in spite of this record, the CADRES poll is telling us that the Barbadian people are preparing to return to such nihilistic rule.
Undoubtedly, the Barbadian people have been badly let down by the DLP over the past four years. But the truth is that it was clear from the very start that something was fundamentally wrong with the party.
The very manner in which the DLP ran its 2008 general election campaign should have alerted Barbadians. It engaged in massive spending, made extravagant promises and relentlessly pursued the young people with entertainment and bribes.
It was clear the DLP was simply focused on winning the election by “any means necessary” and had not worked out a programme for governance.
Prime Minister Stuart was therefore dealt a bad hand and has been trying to play it with his usual honesty and dignity, but as the old folk say: “If yuh start wrong, yuh bound to end wrong.”
It should be clear to all thinking Barbadians that neither the DLP nor the BLP, as currently constituted, is capable of providing Barbados with the leadership that it requires in this most difficult period of time. What Barbados really needs and deserves is a government of national unity that is capable of bringing to the fore the best leadership material available.
A government of national unity would include the best elements of the BLP and DLP, but would also go further and incorporate leadership ability that exists outside the narrow two-party system.
The first step in achieving that is to ensure that neither the DLP nor the BLP wins a majority of seats in the next general election! And this can be achieved if a “third political force” capable of winning seats is involved in the next general election.
Such a “third force” does not have to be conceived of as merely a team of People’s Empowerment Party candidates. But it surely has to be a “People’s Team” of at least ten candidates who are capable of winning seats, thereby ensuring that neither political party wins an outright majority, and setting the stage for a government of national unity to steer our country through this difficult recessionary period.
All Barbadians who love their country need to think seriously about this!
• The PEP column represents the views of the People’s Empowerment Party.
