The narrowness of the election results in Barbados reflects a decision on the part of voters to keep close to the parties to which they have had allegiance. Though it also suggests that Mr Owen Arthur and his team failed to persuade the electorate at large that in the context of the recession which the country has been experiencing, the proposals which Arthur, as an experienced economic practitioner, had put forward, were no more acceptable than the Democratic Labour Party’s promise of patent more of the same.
It would seem that Barbados Labour Party Leader Owen Arthur made the assumption, or took the gamble, that the electorate was anxious to be let out of the recession in whatever way. But the voters seem to have felt that, given what is happening in other parts of the region and the world, there is no magic, or at least unorthodox, solution to the country’s current economic predicament.
The fact is, of course, that the two parties have not historically differed excessively from each other. The Barbados Labour Party, originally led by Sir Grantley Adams like other labour-oriented parties in the Region, originally took its cue from the philosophy and practice of social democracy of the British Labour Party after the Second World War. Then when Errol Barrow could no longer abide Adams’ leadership, he formed the DLP with essentially the same political philosophy and practice.
A part of this practice was the necessity for the state to hold a strategic interest in certain economic activities – electricity, water, social welfare payments, state-subsidised education, subsidized health treatment, and national insurance to ensure a viable living in the individual’s period of retirement, and to ensure that the mass of the population had access to them. And all this has become relatively common ground between the two Barbadian parties, a commitment reinforced by the relatively prosperous period before the recent recession.
Owen Arthur, following a policy line increasingly prevalent in many states, like the social democratic Scandinavian countries, and Britain and France, sought to persuade the Barbadian people that the state should no longer be required to undertake as much of the burden in these activities as it has traditionally done. In line with current policy in these metropolitan states, Arthur asked the electorate to agree that the burden on the state be now shared in a new way – by privatizing some of these activities through commercial sector ownership or participation.
Obviously Arthur felt that in the midst of the current recession which the country is going through, it was reasonable to ask the population for some effort that would relieve the financial burden on the state. But the DLP, insisting that these social gains are part of the national heritage, seems to have been able to persuade not only its own camp, but other voters, that this would be to their detriment. And included in the opposition to Arthur’s strategy for recovery, has obviously been the view that passing on the state’s responsibilities for crucial activities to the private sector, is not a dependable one in terms of the prices that the individual would be required to pay.
It remains to be seen whether the returned Prime Minister Freundel Stuart will be able to hold that line, in a situation in which the government’s financial resources have not been growing, and the state of the economy has been downgraded by the international financial institutions. The conduct of the economy, including what has appeared to be a reluctance on the part of the DLP government to take any unorthodox measures towards recovery, was a central part of Owen Arthur’s attack on the government, but it may be that DLP supporters and the floaters took the view that Barbados, as a small economy, has to await the international, or certainly the American upturn.
The Democratic Labour Party’s campaign strategy also seems to have persuaded both its own supporters, and the floaters, that the BLP did not constitute a sufficiently harmonious entity to be able to run the country. As such, they put the emphasis on Arthur’s inability to persuade even some of his own supporters that he was of a disposition to ensure party, and therefore governmental, unity, given that former leader, and party spokesperson on the economy, Mia Mottley and the party leader, seemed to be at odds.
It appears that the DLP’s guess was right and consequently, Owen Arthur has drawn the appropriate conclusion and refrained from assuming the position of Leader of the Opposition, and in the near future presumably, that of Leader of the BLP.
From a Caricom perspective, it would appear that the campaign was entirely devoid of discussion on Barbados’ place in the Region, and therefore its orientation towards Caricom. Since Arthur’s electoral demise in the previous election, and then the death of David Thompson, Barbados has played a relatively low key role in advancing proposals towards the further implementation of the Single Market and Economy. It looks as if Prime Minister Stuart has accepted that in the midst of a recession that appears to be gripping the whole Region, charity begins at home, and the best thing is that each country, including his own, should try to concentrate on its own economy’s woes.
Barbados is, no doubt, concerned with the case now before the CCJ in which a Jamaican national has claimed maltreatment by immigration officials. Comment over the last many months in Barbados suggests that the country has not taken nicely the continuing drama over the original incident, and the government’s stance has tended to reflect that position.
The immediate post-election period would seem to one of concentration on the national situation, as Prime Minister Stuart faces a new opposition leadership that will be anxious to make its mark quickly.
