AN IMPORTANT ROLE of elections, quite apart from the obvious selection of personnel to office, is to bring to a close, at least temporarily, arguments and disputes over alternative development options and policy directions. Whilst the 2013 election has resolved the question of which party should occupy office, the tenuous nature of the verdict has left a lingering sense of open-endedness on the deeper question of what is to be done on the policy and “future directions” front.
Indeed, observations would suggest that while the opposition BLP fought the election with its energies focused on a policy debate, the victorious DLP, perhaps more cleverly (or opportunistically), fought the election as a contest for office. Thus, whilst the BLP consumed its energies by providing specific policy details on what should be done about the cost of living, CLICO, transforming the productive bases of the economy and related issues, the DLP’s campaign was geared towards saying why the BLP, and Owen Arthur in particular, could not be trusted with office.
The 16-14 result therefore suggests that while the DLP’s case for return to office was won by the thinnest possible margins, the fact that the election was not used to engage in an honest and forthright debate of policy (symbolised by the cowardly avoidance by all parties of televised or structured formal debates), meant that the most critical questions on the way forward have been left suspended in air. Unfortunately therefore, after all the hot hype and high expenditure of the 2013 election campaign, the country is still waiting to exhale.
This does not mean that some critical questions were not answered by the 2013 campaign. Indeed, some very critical political questions, as distinct from policy and developmental approaches, were resolved. This reality is also in conformity with the “tale of two campaigns” which were fought in the singular space of one election in Barbados – the one political and the other developmental.
Among the critical political questions which were resolved was the democratic legitimising and confirmation of Freundel Stuart’s leadership over both his party and government. Relatedly, the election has also meant that the start-stop transitions of the leadership in the BLP which commenced and stalled following the 2008 poll, can now move forward with greater clarity.
On the other hand, the delicate balance of political forces is likely to keep political contestation at the fore, frustrating forward movement on the hard economic choices. Thus, whilst it is customary for a second term government to act more freely in its first months than was previously possible, on this occasion Barbadians can expect its newly elected government to move tentatively.
With the share of office delicately balanced and the global crisis continuing, all the unresolved issues of the 2013 election will play out in the now more delicate political atmosphere.
• Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, specializing in regional affairs.
