Political scientists have focused their attention on the status of the two women – Marsha Caddle and Kay McConney – who were at the centre of yesterday’s Cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
While Caddle submitted her resignation as Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology, McConney, who has been highly criticised as a Minister of Education, was shifted to being Minister of Economic Affairs and Investment.
Of Caddle’s sudden resignation, Dr George Belle, citing her reasons for demitting the ministry, said it would suggest “a divide sufficiently in the Cabinet to make her feel that she should leave it”, even as he expressed agreement for the stance she took given her explanation.
“The issue revolves around her saying that she has resigned for reasons of principle and that if her principles don’t align with the Cabinet, then it is the duty of a minister to resign. That is a fairly fundamental position and that would suggest a divide sufficiently in the Cabinet to make her feel that she should leave the Cabinet,” he said.
“The other side of that is whether she was going to be removed anyhow, which we don’t know, but to the extent that there’s immediately a Cabinet reshuffle, it is not too far-fetched to say that maybe she was going to be removed from that ministry anyway, and that she was not particularly pleased with any such possibility.”
McConney, he noted: “We also know that the Prime Minister would have been seeking to save Ms McConney, who was removed from the Ministry of Education . . . . She has saved Ms McConney in terms of giving her an alternative ministry and she has given her the ministry that Ms Caddle had. So, that is of some interest. We would have to wait for further information.”
The retired University of the West Indies lecturer saw the resignation of Corey Lane, Minister of State in the Attorney General’s Office with responsibility for Crime Prevention, as “more or less that he’s not getting the results he feels he should be getting and whether it’s politically worth it to go there right now”.
He also said that to place Senator Chad Blackman in the newly-named Ministry of Education Transformation “seems to have been a stabilising manoeuvre. That would be a development of stabilising the Cabinet and at the same time, not overly punishing”.
‘Surprised’
Fellow political scientist and pollster Peter Wickham admitted being “surprised” by Caddle’s resignation.
“The exit of Caddle is surprising for me on a personal level, because she’s a minister and a political talent that I rather admire, and I really did hope that she would have a bright future in politics. I mean, this isn’t suggesting that she doesn’t anymore, but for the time being, she’s on the back bench again, and it’s not for the first time. So I suspect she will not be returning to the front bench in a hurry, and I think it’s a pity, because I do believe she has considerable talent
that could be harnessed in the interest of more business development.”
Wickham said he believed the removal of McConney as Minister of Education might have been the Prime Minister using “an opportunity to take action without embarrassing the minister”.
“I had argued some time ago in my own analysis that had the Opposition not been so strident in the call to remove her, she would probably have been removed already.”
Wickham said that with the legal challenges facing Lane, his resignation was “not terribly surprising”.
“I don’t know what the matter is behind it, but he apparently wants some time. I’m inclined to believe that he appreciates the fact that under the circumstances he’s facing now, staying away might not be a bad idea, because he has to focus on the family. I think the other thing is that it avoids Government being placed in a position where there are double standards, because when similar questions were raised regarding another member of the party, that individual was asked to step away.
“So we don’t know whether there will be any formal charge, but we do know that in the meantime, this saves the Prime Minister the need to act in a slightly different way or be accused of hypocrisy in that regard.”
Political analyst Devaron Bruce pointed to Caddle showing a level of independence during her tenure with the Barbados Labour Party.
“She’s always been somewhat of a maverick . . . . I think some of that independence is coming from the fact that she is of a technical background, so she is bringing to bear technical expertise when she is, in essence, addressing and engaging in her various areas of discourse.”
In reference to Caddle’s stated reason for her resignation, Bruce said: “She was insinuating that the ministry was setting in one direction and her views on where it should head was in a different direction. So having those distinctions would cause her to step aside, and that is not unusual in our Westminster system . . . .
“I think it’s important that she reaffirmed her commitment to her constituency and the Barbados Labour Party. So it’s seemingly not a divide of the party, but the ministry in itself. I think those are some important distinctions that have to be made.” (MB)
