It is often said that a day is a long time in politics.
This typically means more to a government than an opposition, since the responsibility of governing is paved with opportunities to do more as well as to make more mistakes.
In the absence of a leader effectively giving guidance to his team, others are inclined to want to take the spotlight – nature truly abhors a vacuum.
The last two weeks have proven to be a political nightmare for the Government, as one of its senior, but sometimes intemperate, ministers seemed to stumble on his thoughts in the House of Assembly as he sought to make a case for Government to be prepared to take harsh action against, well, subversives, or better, insurrectionists, who might emerge out of social unrest because of an Opposition initiative to “rub shoulders” with people.
Minister of Education Ronald Jones, who unfortunately has often acted as Prime Minister, shocked the nation with an outrageous polemic, that harkened back to the colonial days, during debate on the Police Complaints Authority (Validation) Bill, 2013.
“I hope that we respect in this country, law and order. An educated nation is a nation that fosters that level of respect, but there are educated people who themselves are disrespectful of the system from which they came.
“The motley crew will never take over Barbados because they are citizens who want to divide Barbados. There are persons who have no respect for democracy, they have the right to power, but when they believe that right spreads to the creation of a groundswell of greedy insurrection, we will be calling on the coercive forces of Barbados, the military forces of Barbados, the Royal Barbados Police Force, to bring back law and order. Who will be the complaints authority then?
There will be thousands of complaints because, by necessity, in order to restore order, you will have to crack some heads, you will have to shoot some people. Let us understand this reality.”
Not to be outdone, another one of its bold ministers failed in respecting the role of a major institution of the governance structure that is supposed to be transparent, while yet another part of that governance process was called into question as it is being argued that the Commissioner of Police was summarily dismissed.
The confluence of events represents to me the unfolding of a Government that is obviously feeling the pressure, and whose focus ought to be on addressing the economic crisis. Instead, every other issue is being used to attempt to mask the real bread and butter issues.
From day to day, the pressure on Barbadians to stretch their financial resources is mounting. And as passive as they seem to be, pressure has a way of altering the mindset of the most reasonable among us. Ask Jones.
It is difficult to understand where he was going in his tirade. He has been asked to explain his remarks, which was intended as an opportunity for him to apologize. But his personality, which was most evident in the Alexandra saga, is not one that bends in the face of adversity. Rather, he is inclined to reinforce his own understanding.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart has to demonstrate that the statements are offensive by distancing himself from them.
And the remarks of Minister of Industry Donville Inniss on the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are indicative of an over-confident public figure, whose stakes have been on the rise in the aftermath the Eager Eleven episode. Since then, he appears to have made strides in the leadership succession that is imminent in the next few years.
However, there is a reason the name of the committee has the word “public”; it is because the PAC is chaired by the Leader of the Opposition to make the Government accountable for its spending. Transparency is the hallmark of accountability. The 2003 amendments to the legislation to allow the PAC to investigate private companies owned by Government and the media to report the proceedings to the public were designed to enhance transparency.
Unfortunately, the PAC, being the child of two different fathers, is caught in a bind, but the House should settle the rules and let it move on.
This leads to the role of Opposition Leader Mia Mottley in bringing to light the many issues, which apparently caught Government MPs off guard. She deserves credit for extracting information and putting the PAC in a position to be very relevant during this session of Parliament.
However, she has to be careful that in her zeal, the impression is not created of a crusading prosecutor, and also remember that she is only the chair of the PAC who must respect the rights of other MPs while resisting the temptation to make “rulings”.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent.
