PURELY POLITICAL: Politics in an unsettled land

There is perhaps no more eloquent testimony to the unsettled state of play in the national pastime than to find both major parties taking to the hustings once again mere months after the last election.
What is striking is that the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) has found it necessary to plan a direct approach to the people – short of all-out mass meetings in Independence Square, Queen’s Park or other stomping grounds – so soon after it had pooh-poohed the Opposition Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) Rubbing Shoulders initiative.
That campaign has taken the Opposition into key sectors of the economy to interact directly with the people the BLP believes are most affected by the fiscal crisis.
If Leader of the Opposition Mia Mottley’s strategy seemed at first blush like the sour grapes manoeuvrings of an unhappy political party which felt it should have won the election, it has now been validated by the ruling party’s response and appears to be paying off, at least, small dividends.
Still, the DLP can claim that its decision to return to the people with a campaign, shorn of multimedia messages and Under The Streetlights events, has nothing to do with any Opposition threat.
Rather, it was motivated solely by the public’s reaction in the aftermath of a confused and confusing 2013 Budget and predicated on the need to more properly explain Government’s approaches to dealing with the twin devils of debt and deficit to a people whose anxiety and frustration appear to be rising with each passing day.
Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, in an almost classic attempt at distraction and misdirection, pointed an accusing finger at the media, which he charged has been “alarmist” even as public workers can’t get  their salaries and some have reached – to use his understanding the word “temporary” – the end of their promised stint of employment and must therefore go home.
But a clearer understanding of the Government’s intent was provided by Minister of Industry Donville Inniss, the new DLP general secretary, who appears to be positioning himself as the more credible (?) No. 2 to Stuart on the back of the continuing misfortunes  of the sliding Minister of Finance who seems yet  to learn that bombast, invective and personal attacks are not the pathways to progress in his pursuit of the Big Chair in Bay Street.
Nature, it is said, abhors a vacuum, and into that yawning chasm has stepped Inniss, who seems to have appointed himself Explainer-in-Chief for the DLP and has fallen in love with every media camera and microphone from George Street to the Parliament Buildings.
According to him, Barbadians can expect to see and hear more from the DLP Members of Parliament in the coming weeks as they try to make themselves “more visible” while explaining why it was necessary for Government to take certain decisions.
“So, we can expect, going forward, apart from the Sunday mass meeting, that there will be other opportunities for members of the public to sit and discuss issues of the day with their Member of Parliament and with the Government on the whole,” Inniss said.
“We are not talking about political meetings but meetings where you can sit down in community centres and engage the public where they can tell us their concerns and we can let them know what decisions we are taking and why. The average Barbadian understands and appreciates that we have some challenging times. That is not going to turn around overnight. I think the disquiet may have come about where there is a feeling that the Government of the day has not communicated effectively with the public.”
Meantime, the BLP, apparently ignoring the “crack some heads” threat its agitation via the Rubbing Shoulders tours provoked, appears to be stepping up its campaign to remove the Government by taking its message to the people on the streets.
Kerrie Symmonds, rejoicing in the profoundly ludicrous title of “Leader of Opposition Business in the House of Assembly”, said the party has to correct the mistake in the last election of assuming that the public was already knowledgeable about how badly the country was doing and that it wanted to make a change.
“We believed there were a majority of people out there who understood and were feeling the pain – the allowances had already been taken away; the VAT had been increased; the promises had been broken; layoffs had started in the private sector, albeit not in both the private and public sector – and we believed there was enough happening in the country for people to see this thing and say, ‘Look, there is a need to stop what is taking place in Barbados and vote in a new Government’, but we got it wrong.”
The post-election campaigning is well and truly under way and things are about to get even more unsettled around here.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political analyst.