When the first rumblings of the Maria Agard issue arose I thought at the time that it was much ado about nothing. It appeared to be a small spat at the constituency level which had nothing to do per se with the party hierarchy or leadership. Unlike many others who very early on were calling for the issue to be quietly settled out of the public domain; I saw it as part of the natural and expected tension that would arise as any organisation goes through change.
I scoffed at the attempts by those in the Press and otherwise that sought to scale up the issue immediately to one of leadership, suggesting that the party was in danger of crumbling. The idea of a monolithic and fully unified party I thought had been debunked years ago.
Do we recall Owen Arthur’s leadership and his own battles with various constituency ridings? What about the warfare which erupted for leadership in the then Opposition DLP? We remember St Phillip West and David Estwick’s claim at that time of “mischief” and attempts to “destabilise” his constituency? They quarrelled, they made up, and we the public were well aware that tensions remained but we expected that they could still work together to get the job done when it counted.
The current issue has clearly snowballed to what I consider to be unnecessary proportions. I would suggest that the escalation is perhaps more about the shadows than the substance of the actual issues which were initially at the centre of the dispute. Just merely going on what has been in the public domain, I believe that the Maria Agard situation is a simple one of poor judgement and personality. While I am sure that there were machinations behind the scenes which have fed Dr. Agard’s position she has shown that perhaps she is not the most astute of politicians. An astute politician needs to be very careful about the fights they pick and the long term repercussions of their actions. There is nothing in the way Dr. Agard has handled this situation which suggests that she has this particular trait.
The problem is that the BLP hierarchy has allowed itself to be caught up in her downward personal political spiral. This has served to divert focus and energies away from the larger political fight to a family backyard brawl. Moreover, the Opposition leader and the BLP hierarchy have been out maneuvered by the pressure of what I perceive to be manufactured public angst. Mia Mottley’s actions appear to be motivated by the perception that she needs to act in this situation to demonstrate her leadership, particularly to quiet comparisons between her and the leadership of former Prime Minister Owen Arthur. Ms. Mottley keeps forgetting that the mythology around the leadership of Owen Arthur was not so much about what he did in public but what he did behind the scenes.
As political leader, she should have treated Dr Agard with the same level of respect the MP has meted to everyone including the constituency branch, and left the sorting out of this issue to other political operatives. She should have left herself free to do the necessary party work and missed a golden opportunity to engage the public in a wider and more necessary debate on the need for recall mechanisms. This issue started at the branch level and should have been sorted there. As a leader, it does not always mean that you have to part every fight and win every battle. At times, the power of leadership is getting others to solve the crisis for you and knowing when to step back. To be fair, however, it is clear that political manoeuvrings are afoot. The role of George Payne, Ronald Toppin and the interesting choice of attorneys for Dr Agard suggest that Ms Mottley is battling more than an intractable candidate.
The recent protestations by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur are unworthy of him. His attempt to whip up Press outrage sounds hollow when one remembers his unapologetic calling of a member of the Press a negrocrat. The public remains still today unclear of why he fired his Ministers, publicly calling one of them cantankerous. We expect more from the former Prime Minister and he should seek to remain the statesman that we want him to be- rising above the din to offer sober commentary.
If this matters ends up in court, it will become a major distraction for the BLP. Ms. Mottley and her party must think about how they will restrategise and reposition themselves. For once, the DLP’s strategy of silence is exactly just the right one for this time.
