THERE IS NO DOUBT the recent downgrade by Moody’s has triggered the latest no-confidence motion against the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Government.
Unless there is an unusual circumstance, as happened in 1994, when a fractured Erskine Sandiford Administration caved in after a motion, the expectation of the Opposition is hardly ever to bring down a Government with one blow.
Opposition leader Mia Mottley was accused by some of being premature in her prosecution of the targeted individuals with the first two motions. This time, no such accusation can be fairly levelled for a motion that has substantial supporting evidence.
In fact, it is as if the pending motion is the last part of a trilogy.
And while the numbers on the Opposition benches were increased since the last motion, there are today two fewer MPs since the 2013 general election. In this sense, the motion offers an intriguing look into the politics of politics in the House of Assembly.
The charge sheet must of necessity compare and contrast the current management and leadership, especially of the economy, with the pre-2008 situation. This puts Independent St Peter MP Owen Arthur in a position to support his period of stewardship and to continue his criticism of the current circumstances.
In doing so, he may appear supportive of the Opposition and – in one of the delicious ironies of politics – by extension, its leader!
In the 2016 Estimates debate, Arthur presented his typically clinical examination of the economy. He assessed the past and put the present into context, such that the minister of finance could not resist his usual impetuosity. The motion will therefore contain some fascinating political tensions born predominantly out of different economic perspectives.
Those contending perspectives are now being reinforced by the accumulation of evidence, resulting from the prolonged failure of Government to adequately address the economic fundamentals. This process started in 2010 with the laying of the first Medium Term Fiscal Strategy – subsequently revised. It morphed into a home-grown strategy to rid it of any perceived input from the IMF.
The timing of the motion is instructive. It coincides with the full impact of the income tax measures introduced in the 2015 Budget. They took away all the major allowances and deductions that benefitted taxpayers, thereby compounding the financial woes of all classes of Barbadians.
From a political perspective, it is well understood that voters take note when their pockets are affected. And while previous measures caused significant burdens, they did not have the direct impact so obvious in the recent imposts.
There is also a significant political irony being played out with the economic measures. While Government calls the fiscal strategy home-grown, it is the IMF that conducted the research on tax reform. In every sense, Government appears locked between two institutions whose reputations are highly questionable at this time.
The credit rating institutions that Government was hoping to keep at a distance have become its Achilles heel. They have effectively served as the independent external evaluators of the fiscal strategy that has been around for several years.
The political issue becomes prominent when comparisons are made with countries like Jamaica and Belize which have been described as “serial defaulters” on debt.
While it is easy to hide the technical issues relating to international credit ratings from John Public, there is no way of hiding being compared to Jamaica and Belize. This is when it becomes difficult to spin the political message. In this context, the last in the trilogy of no-confidence motions has much greater resonance in respect of the politics, economics and sociology of the times.
Therefore, Barbadians would expect the full gamut of issues affecting the country at this time to be objectively assessed in a comprehensive no-confidence debate. The scenario will be of an Opposition presenting a wide-ranging case with the use of evidence and political emotion, and of a Government avoiding and/or downplaying its assertions.
The mission for the public is to evaluate the facts, which only effectively occurs when they are forced to tune into the “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) station. Herein lies the real difference between the pending no-confidence motion and the previous two: the timing coincides with a confluence of policy initiatives and political events that have impacted negatively and directly on the pockets of Barbadians and their quality of life.
Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent. Email: [email protected]
