Last week’s article sought to assess what appears to be the re-election strategy of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and expressed reservations about its capacity to deliver a victory for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).
The logical question that follows therefore is what strategy would be more prudent and it is this alternative that will now be explored.
Despite my pessimism regarding the likelihood that the Stuart administration will be returned, I believe that it is possible for the DLP to win, even at this late stage. To do so, however, the party would need to move in an entirely different direction and do so with an uncharacteristic swiftness.
While the Stuart strategy is presumably built around three pillars, the Wickham strategy is constructed around two:
• Leadership popularity versus party popularity; and
• Policy and governmental activities.
However, these pillars would need to be subsumed within a framework of central coordination and messaging that are glaringly absent at this time. As a matter of priority, the Wickham strategy would require that the DLP identify a central coordinator for its campaign who could advise on a range of strategic issues and develop messaging themes to which all spokespersons would need to conform.
It is entirely possible that such a task could be performed by the leader himself. However, this is both ill-advised and unlikely to happen at this stage. The DLP would therefore need to quickly identify such a person in whom the Prime Minister has sufficient confidence.
Identified direction
Once appointed, the coordinator would issue instructions on Stuart’s behalf that would give effect to an identified direction and bring closure to several issues upon which he has been slow to act. In the past this function was performed by Mr Hartley Henry and, of course, one wonders if he could again emerge in this capacity.
It is also prudent here to mention the need for the DLP’s leadership to consider the nature of its political friendships, which appear at this stage to be most “unproductive”. While Dale Carnegie spoke of the keys to “winning friends and influencing people” in a way that was most noble, the Prime Minister would do well to consider the extent to which his political friendships are different and more practical.
Hence, there are several “Thompson Dems” who have been marginalized who could be essential to the DLP’s re-election bid. In this business it is perhaps more important to make friends with those you “need” than those you “like” and remember that political friendships are often more of the utilitarian variety.
As one moves to the substantive issues, the most significant is that of leadership since we have a peculiar situation where the DLP as a party is now more popular than its leader and this is a major for problem since we tend to vote for leaders. Moreover, one assumes that the DLP’s leader would want to retain his post so the easier solution of changing leaders is not an option.
The DLP can, however, market itself in such a way that the focus remains on the party as distinct from the person leading it. And the party can seek to overcome this hurdle in such a way that voters would re-elect the leader “by accident”.
To achieve this, the type of campaign that the DLP mounted in 2008 would simply not work since the “presidential” type campaign would draw attention to one of the DLP’s vulnerabilities. Instead, it would be logical for the party to draw attention to the personalities that people are most excited about.
This type of strategic direction would require maturity on the part of the DLP’s leader to accept a reality which has thus far been denied and ideally would involve two specific MPs.
The Wickham strategy would fully exploit the popularity of Ministers Christopher Sinckler and Donville Inniss who, under this plan, would each be elevated to either the post of deputy prime minister or senior minister. The deputy would be given “oversight” of the 2013 campaign and the senior minister additional responsibility for information, which would include the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation and Government Information Service, both of which are critical to the DLP’s messaging going forward.
This arrangement would effectively harness underutilized talent and assure the party’s leadership of the full enthusiastic cooperation of key functionaries who have on occasion appeared less than enthusiastic.
The public would, of course, interpret this as an indication of the Prime Minister’s likely intention to surrender leadership to one of these individuals in the short term, while in reality it need not mean anything of the sort. Instead, this strategy would effectively force two individuals who appear to have reservations about Stuart to help re-elect him.
The DLP has an equally peculiar problem regarding policies and unfulfilled promises which it cannot address on account of the economic environment. It seems clear from polls that Barbadians are largely appreciative of the constraints that the Government faces and could therefore be inclined to “excuse” the DLP for not fulfilling some promises.
The DLP, however, needs to put something else on the table for voters to consider. To this extent, the Wickham strategy anticipates a flurry of activity in areas that the DLP did not promise activity. The recession limits the policy options for the Dems but there is no reason why they cannot advance legislation in the area of governance, which is understood to be important but is quite “cheap”.
Fashionable amendments
One such initiative could be a reformed Education Act, the need for which has been highlighted by the recent commission of inquiry. In addition, the DLP could take some fashionable and uncontroversial amendments to the Barbados Constitution to Parliament that would guarantee freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender and special protections for the aged, disabled and a guaranteed right to vote.
These were all recommendations made in the report of the Forde Commission and, in the interest of political expediency, the Wickham strategy would see the DLP “cherry pick” the least controversial policies for rapid implementation.
In much the same way that the DLP never promised free bus fares, which has become a hallmark of its term, it can similarly boast of having done things that were never promised – although not being able to do things that it promised.
• Peter W. Wickham (peter.wickham@caribsurf.com) is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).
