I LED A POLITICAL PARTY, in which Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse positioned themselves to ensure that the party did not win the general election of 2003. The chief horseman did not participate anywhere close to fully, to deliver on the ignoble objective. He simply put himself before the party.
On reflection, the four shared one thing in common. Two have passed on, with the elder being aligned by hue to this country’s highest social class.
Having lost in two previous elections, it was apropos for the chief horseman not to lose a third straight election. In similar vein, some of his allies opted to sit out the 2003 general election, after previous defeats. Some of us struggled on after the debacle of the early 1990s and the embarrassment of the 1999 election.
In spite of being asked on two separate occasions to take back the leadership of the party, he was adamant that he did not want to, at that stage. Yet, [someone] approached me on the last night of the 2003 campaign with the suggestion that the chief should speak last in the final meeting.
Context
This suggestion has to be put in context. As the political leader, it was determined that I should have at least three national meetings in my constituency. On each occasion, the chief horseman was asked to speak and he never did. He, however, spoke in the adjoining constituencies. What a character!
Apparently, in politics as in business, there is nothing wrong with pursuing your self-interest at all cost. It is therefore not at all surprising that the two endeavours are interwoven. The danger comes when the power in politics collides with the money in big business. It is accepted with guile that the latter trumps the former in the political arena.
Let us not be naive in believing that the two worlds do not need each other. But similarly, let us not fail to appreciate that they must not be too interwoven especially in small states, where the collision can be injurious to the wishes of the majority.
Notwithstanding the obvious lack of performance by the current Government, there is a genuine concern among Barbadians that money may play a crucial role, leading up to and into the next general elections. The concern is based on its potential scarcity, given the economic circumstances and hence its elevated importance.
Such is the influence of big business in politics that two weeks before the end of the 2003 general election, the political party that I led, it was told to me, ran out of money. This was and still is instructive. No matter how much progress is made by the average man, there is a group that feels emboldened to control the ship of state from behind.
In an election prior to 2003, the party was able to secure a loan from a not-surprising source. The repayment of the loan became its major financial obligation, to the extent that other crucial and more humane obligations were neglected. The most serious one was the non-payment of National Insurance contributions for the staff that went on for years. This was rectified, as the loan was renegotiated.
The renegotiation eased the cash flow of the party and made it possible to resolve the risk to the workers. This and other things were reported to the rank and file of the party for the first time by way of a financial report during my leadership.
The new alliance, which contradicts the boast of non-alliance with big business, is suggestive of a change in outlook. This change is fascinating from a leadership which preached that the owners of labour and capital cannot sleep in the same bed, because they have diverging interests. The message was the exploitation of the owners of labour by the owners of capital. Apparently, no such potential for exploitation currently exists. Oh, how things have changed.
The rebirth constitutes the most fundamental shift in posture by any of the two political parties in the post-Independence period. Coincidentally, since 2008, the owners of labour have suffered most at the hands of the Government.
Perhaps the change in posture is a transitory inconvenience that now ranks the power of capital above the power of labour.
• Dr Clyde Mascoll is an economist and Opposition Barbados Labour Party advisor on the economy. Email: clyde_mascoll@hotmail.com