(Barbados Nation) Opposition leader Owen Arthur on Sunday told the woman he and four of his parliamentary colleagues ousted from the leadership of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) that the country and the party needed her.
With Mia Mottley sitting in the general audience at the party’s 72nd annual conference at Deighton Griffith Secondary School, Arthur thanked the former BLP political leader for the service she had rendered to the party and said he thought “the world of her”.
This followed Saturday’s decision by Mottley to withdraw her candidature for the position of chairman of the party, and her accusations that the process to select delegates to vote for that position had been tainted. Arthur did not touch on Mottley’s specific concerns.
However, he said there was no place in the BLP for the forces of destruction. He added there had to be a place for constructive and creative engagement. He noted that there should always be res-pect for rules and accommodation of dissent and respect for differences of opinion.
“We must also commit ourselves to conduct our affairs in an orderly and disciplined manner, and one which lifts up and burnishes rather than tears down the image of the party,” he said.
Arthur stated that the BLP could not hope to be guardians of the democracy they had created and nurtured in Barbados if they did not promote and practise the basic principles of democracy within the party itself. He stated that the “will of the majority” had to be respected and “must prevail”.
The former Prime Minister said members had to remember that only disciplined institutions could and would be depended on to lead mature and sophisticated societies, especially during times of turmoil. Arthur stressed that there was no place for “institutional indiscipline” in the BLP. He took exception to recent internal disquiet being aired in the media.
