Often it pays not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing until the time is right. As, in the fullness of time, we ratchet up the momentum, details of our plans will emerge through our candidates and their teams. – Prime Minister Freundel Stuart addressing the 57th annual conference of the ruling Democratic Labour Party last Sunday.
IF YOU WERE A MEMBER, supporter or friend of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and expected to hear a clear and compelling case – at the last such conference before the next general election – for the party’s return to Government, you would have been disappointed.
And if you were hoping to hear that action had been taken to deal with DLP “family matters” such as the so-called Eager Eleven and the more recently minted Frustrated Five who are reported to be “brekking for demselves” going into the pending poll rather than presenting a unified face to the voting public, then you might even have been more distressed.
Usually, such election year party conferences are used as more than just an occasion to rally the troops and the faithful to the cause, but also to speak directly to the wider national constituency in defence of your stewardship and to tell voters what they can expect from the next term.
With only about eight months left in this parliamentary term, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart sought only to assure the faithful that the party was ready for an election victory but gave no hint as to the shape or form of his campaign strategy to rout the impatient Opposition Barbados Labour Party – except that they should have “a winning mindset” as their main weapon.
“Our planning for general elections is quietly moving ahead,” he said. “We are doing so meticulously and will leave no stone unturned in legitimate pursuit of our objectives. Some have interpreted our silence as a sign of inactivity and a reflection of unreadiness. Let me assure you, they are gravely mistaken. Very often in the execution of strategy, it pays to be reserved.”
For the rest of the speech, Stuart gave no inkling of what that “strategy” would look like.
As for the DLP’s report card, the single most important item was the almost self-congratulatory repetition of the mantra that this administration had kept the Barbados economy “stable” in the face of the worst global downturn since the 1930s.
It seems as if this Government expects to be rewarded by voters for “a solid performance” in not having lost a single job in the public sector, deliberately ignoring the fact that thousands in the private sector have gone home or are working shorter hours in the face of a continually rising cost of living with higher energy prices, especially electricity.
“I readily acknowledge that times are tough for the ordinary man and woman in Barbados,” the Prime Minister said. “With fewer resources at our disposal because of the global downturn, we as a Government have not been able to do everything we would have liked, or to meet every need. But if Barbados did not have a Government that cared and was looking out for the interests of all Barbadians, our situation could have been even more perilous, especially for the vulnerable elements amongst us.”
While Stuart was touting his Government’s “management” of the economy, he also managed to gloss over the other pressing “difficulties” confronting the administration such as the CLICO debacle and Standard & Poor’s downgrade to junk bond status, while drawing the sub judice smokescreen across The Alexandra School scandal and the unseemly shenanigans in the Royal Barbados Police Force.
But to me what was the most amazing was the short shrift he gave to the most pressing issue facing both the DLP and the country – that of his leadership.
The Prime Minister attempted to paint the national conversation on his stewardship as an Opposition-driven issue for self-serving political ends.
“I do not intend to waste time on this issue,” he averred, “since I am only the target of the moment.”
Unaware of concerns
It was as if Stuart was unaware of the concerns expressed by several of his Cabinet ministers and other DLP Members of Parliament in the now infamous letter, and similar expressions from the private sector.
Some people are asking how did Stuart manage to step down from his “heads will roll” stance on the botched palace coup to a position where he appears to be pretending that all had been forgiven and the Eager Eleven were now safely ensconced back in the DLP fold which has renewed its camaraderie, reinforced its unity for the battle ahead and recommitted itself to the core principles and values of the party.
Where was that unity and camaraderie, they asked, when Minister of Culture Steve Blackett and Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite, with only months to go before a general election, took their separate paths to progress over the 2008 manifesto promises and the tax-free allowances, respectively?
Are these matters too, that Stuart will take a firm decision on like The Alexandra School and kick the can down the road until after the general election?
While it is quite understandable for Stuart to be “reserved” in the execution of his strategy for the next general election, his supporters have to be made aware that there is such a strategy waiting to be executed.
In the early days of the Stuart administration, some of us felt that in the absence of a “snap poll” following the death of David Thompson, this Prime Minister would have used all of the time available to him to post his own mark on the DLP.
In that scenario, the DLP planners would have used the memory of the beloved late Prime Minister as the focal point of the next election campaign – with Stuart as his worthy successor – especially after it seemed his popularity had risen even after his passing.
But all that appeared to have changed with the findings of the interim report of the CLICO judicial managers in which Thompson’s image took a bashing, and it is hardly likely now that the clique in the DLP that worshipped him and now want Stuart out of the way in preference to his favoured son Chris Sinckler, will be allowed to play any major role in the execution of Stuart’s strategy.
It was striking that in Stuart’s speech, he made only two fleeting references to his predecessor in the context of Thompson’s publicly stated approach to resolving the CLICO matter – which he shares – and the other being in defence of being only the latest DLP leader to be attacked by the BLP forces for his alleged lack of leadership skills.
But while Stuart may be able to remove the memory of David Thompson from the DLP’s election campaign platform, he should not expect that the Opposition will exhibit any such graciousness, particularly in light of the CLICO interim report.
How much help Stuart can expect from the Eager Eleven and those five now said to be “brekking for demselves” in crafting an alternative election strategy will remain a matter for conjecture – at least for the time being.
• Albert Brandford is an independent political correspondent. Email [email protected]
