IT IS NOT UNCOMMON for political leaders in Barbados and elsewhere to enforce discipline in the ranks by taking extraordinary action against dissenters to “encourage” the potentially like-minded.
It is also not uncommon for political leaders to summarily dismiss members of the Cabinet and the unelected Senate who in both instances serve at their behest.
It is uncommon, however, for a political party to seek to publicly discipline a sitting Member of Parliament for infractions that could lead up to expulsion.
Standoff
When dissident Christ Church West MP, Dr Maria Agard, sits down today before a panel of peers on the National Council of the Barbados Labour Party to answer a nine-charge indictment, it will be framed as a standoff with political leader Mia Mottley who is attempting to enforce the constitution.
What under normal circumstances would have been a purely internal party matter settled with the finesse associated with the BLP over the years of not washing its dirty linen in public, has instead mushroomed into a big, noisy, public spectacle amplified by the radio call-in programmes and the now ubiquitous social media.
It is not the first time that either of the two major political parties – the other being the ruling Democratic Labour Party – has had to move to enforce its rules against a prominent figure that has culminated collectively in four expulsions in the last 50 years.
That in none of those instances was the individual a sitting Member of Parliament – although two of them had served in the House of Assembly – points to the unprecedented nature of today’s event.
The national executive of the parties, however styled – whether for the BLP, the National Council, or for the DLP, the National Executive Council – is made up of delegates from the branches and other party organs and is the highest decision making body charged with approving its direction and enforcing its rules.
Customarily, these councils have followed the leader’s guide, in the case of the DLP, the revered Errol Barrow was fancied as a one-man council who may have been questioned but seldom if ever thwarted, while enjoying dictatorial powers in relation to the Cabinet and Senate appointments.
In the BLP, however, while the statutory powers were also unchallenged, the same did not hold for political leaders across the generations and the stories are legion that even as astute and strong-willed a politician as Tom Adams presided over “tumultuous” council meetings where he was harried by the rank and file, especially his own St Thomas delegation.
But it is within those councils that the de jure power of a political party is located as discovered by a few unfortunates in both parties.
Their fates have been recorded by the NATION’s Editor Emeritus Harold Hoyte in his forthcoming book Political Warriors of Barbados which includes the struggles of former Cabinet ministers Sir Mencea Cox, of the BLP, and Dr Rameses Caddle, of the DLP.
Early stalwart
Hoyte recounts that Cox, one of the early stalwarts and committed foot soldiers of the BLP, endured at least two major disagreements with the party, some say unavoidable with a man of strong convictions which were manifested by “an independence of thought”.
The feuding, Hoyte writes, began in 1958 when Cox was overlooked by Sir Grantley Adams who made Dr Gordon Cummins Premier once (he) Adams was leaving Barbados to lead the new West Indies Federation.
“Cox, who was Deputy Premier (1958 to 1961) knew his working class background and lack of formal education beyond seventh standard stood in the way of being given the top job,” he adds.
The second major bout with the BLP came after it lost the 1961 general election under the leadership of Dr Cummins.
Hoyte says Cox’s passion for representing the interests of the workers led him to urge the BLP to form an alternative general union to compete with the Barbados Workers’ Union that had slipped out of the grasp of the BLP and had been unofficially aligned with the DLP.
When the party showed no interest in Cox’s idea, he set up his own union.
Cox’s move
“But Cox felt that the Transport Board workers in particular were under-represented by the BWU and he took up their cause,” Hoyte notes. “That and other internal party complications led to his brief expulsion from the party in 1964.”
Cox would later return to the fold and run in two other elections.
In the DLP, the executive council in 1988 expelled three prominent members – Dr Caddle, former long-time standard-bearer for The City, Lisle Carmichael, and a Caddle supporter Lorenzo Coward.
Caddle’s problems emerged from his omission as a candidate in the 1986 elections and general dissatisfaction with policy trends in the DLP, but held on to the party until the following year when on Barrow’s sudden death in office, he felt he had been overlooked as a replacement candidate in St John.
Even though still a member of the party, he ran as an Independent candidate in the 1987 by-election.
“For this selfish error of a forlorn venture into his party’s stronghold,” Hoyte recalls, “he was expelled from the DLP later that year, much to the delight of some and the great disappointment of others.”
Caddle’s party
In 1988, Caddle formed the short-lived Barbados National Progressive Party for which Coward spoke at its few public meetings.
“All were invited to the disciplinary meeting to defend themselves,” Hoyte recalls, “but only the outspoken Coward attended and stood up to a heavily biased party council representing the status quo.
“Even though the council showed concern for Dr Caddle, who had been among the party’s first adherents in 1955, it was felt his publicly expressed disloyalty and that of the other two, meant they had to be disposed of, Dr Caddle, for contesting the 1987 by-election; Coward, for supporting him and Carmichael, for ‘unethical conduct’ when he publicly criticized his party for the manner in which its 1986 City candidate, Peter Miller was chosen over him.
“In reaction to the expulsion, Dr Caddle sent this missive to the DLP: ‘To Mr Sandiford with love. Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for you.’ ”
For whom will today’s bell toll?
