THE ONGOING RIFTÂ between Member of Parliament Dr Maria Agard and the executive of her constituency group, and extended to the leadership of the Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), has elicited much comment, clouded and muddled by partisan lenses.
The detractors of Opposition Leader Mia Mottley have reduced the Maria Agard affair to a crisis for the leadership of Mia Mottley, while those arguing from a pro-Mottley perspective have dismissed the issue as a mere storm in a teacup.
In a context where the ruling Democratic Labour Party has been struggling with the economic and social challenges of Government, the Agard issue is being presented as evidence of the BLP’s un-governability due to internal divisions, and the unwillingness of Miss Mottley’s party to accept her leadership. It is the ideal propaganda wicket for a party struggling to score re-election runs.
Hence Dr Agard is painted either as a heroic figure pursuing a progressive anti-party model of representation, or as a poor novice being bullied by an insensitive party machine and political leader.
Factually, however, Dr Agard is a newly elected MP with barely two years of political experience and with little previous exposure to public life. She exhibits many features of the new generation MP, who though occupying political office, intellectually “deny” the political.
Such novices see their political offices as technocratic jobs earned on the basis of their “qualifications” and nothing else, and are often surprised when ordinary party members begin to assume the role of employer and “make demands”. The instinct of the green MP to is to “show who is boss” or to walk away in frustration.
It is such dynamics which explain Dr Agard’s dismissive response to the BLP leadership. It is largely her inexperience which explains her overconfidence . . . . A more seasoned political personality would have acted differently.
Had Dr Agard been a major political figure contending for political leadership, her actions would be in perfect order. However, she is a second-year politician too weak to consolidate a constituency group around her and, arising out of her fear of deselection, she has broken all the rules of internal party contestation.
It is likely, however, that Dr Agard senses the possibility of a post-Mottley BLP, and sees herself as part of the process to effectuate such a possibility. If this is so, she must consider why she has placed herself at the frontline of such a movement, while more experienced hands remain unseen.
It is true, though, that Miss Mottley’s future depends on the determination of her detractors. Only the elected BLP members can decide whether her leadership is so poor that she must be replaced as an absolute necessity.
If such a decision is reached, Miss Mottley will be blameless if she chooses to observe the fate of the BLP from the sidelines.
• Tennyson Joseph is a political scientist at the University of the West Indies, Cave HillCampus, specialising in regional affairs. Email tjoe2008@live.com .
