MY HEART IS heavy. There is a painful feeling in my bones. And yet I have to explore.
Why would the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Government of Barbados publicly slight such a massive country as China?
To suggest that the per capita gross domestic product of Barbados – the size of a small township in China – is larger than China’s is a comparison without meaning, but to me a slight of immense weight.
Indeed, the unfathomable episodic responses to the recurring downgrades by rating agencies is, from many perspectives, incomprehensible. Except?
Except, the DLP sees as the zenith of its political strategy what can only be described as the nadir (lowest point) – political cynicism. This translates as – holding on to power regardless.
One, therefore, has to ask whether the strategy then is to do little or nothing to reverse the economic slide while at the same time maintaining, as far as possible, employment numbers and not selling off the now largely indebted Government corporations or companies.
Are they banking on there being such an upwelling of disgust that they are sure to lose the next general election. The result is that the incoming government would be forced to make the manpower and financial adjustments which should have been started at least three years earlier.
Such a move would give the DLP the opportunity to say to the country, ‘See, we told you they would have to lay off and cut spending massively. We didn’t do it, but we knew they would.’
Can we fall to such a nadir of political cynicism which would put the country and everyone in it at risk? DLP, say it isn’t so.
Show us we are wrong.
– MICHAEL RUDDER
