With the next election about 18 months away, if not sooner, the political scene has been a hive of activity, or inactivity, depending on one’s perspective.
The Prime Minister’s leadership style, the appointment of the next Chief Justice, the Chris Sinckler Press blitz, the Prime Minister’s one-on-one interview with Rosemary Alleyne, the acting/permanent appointment of Denis Kellman and his take on the office of Prime Minister and when Mr Stuart should speak, or not speak, compete for Press coverage with the constant rumour of a Cabinet reshuffle.
There has never been a better chance for the serious political journalist to show why the Press is called the Fourth Estate, but so limp has been the analysis and comment on these matters – with one or two honourable exceptions – that the man in the drawing room who buys both newspapers is no better informed than the man who fires a grog in the local rum shop and argues politics.
Very often the grassroots rum-drinker is better informed.
But this country is at the crossroads. The question is simple: Shall we go back to Owen and the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) or do we press on with Freundel and the Dems? Whenever and however one tosses the salad of issues, one comes back to that central issue. It is for that reason that the furore about whether and how Mr Stuart speaks or does not speak remains important.
The media blitz of Minister of Finance Sinckler was perhaps a necessary but dangerous episode.
It may have satisfied a clamant need for information, but it had the side-effect potential to permanently damage the Prime Minister’s image as a leader!
This was obviously not Sinckler’s intention, but the unspoken question was why was a lieutenant speaking when the crowd wanted to hear the general?
It reminded us of Minister Darcy Boyce’s interview on the economy last year.
It should not have happened twice!
To say that the show is never over until the proverbial “fat lady” sings is another way of saying that the buck stops at the Prime Minister’s desk. In our democracy, collective responsibility is the principle but people elect a leader and the Prime Minister is “numero uno”. When Sir Herbert Duffus said “all roads led to (former Prime Minister Errol) Barrow”, he was stating the obvious, because if all roads do not lead to the prime minister of the day, then he is not the “elected king” that he must be.
The danger of damage to the Prime Minister’s image increased when Stuart held his Press interview. Television is a cruel medium and it accommodated the image of the lounge suit and tie of Mr Sinckler much more readily than it did the open-necked shirt of Mr Stuart. We could now compare apples with apples. That is why the English call television the “idiot box”, for wise men listen to what is said while others get carried away by “how he look” and then the perception becomes the reality.
The Prime Minister’s image is that of a man of rhetoric, but what we have not yet seen is a demonstration of his political nous. The late David Thompson had political nous in abundance. That is why he claimed that the superior objective of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was building a society and not an economy. He knew that the DLP could not match Arthur and the BLP on management of the economy and so he shifted his political ground.
In politics, intellect alone does not cut it and that is why small details like the nature of the interview and the manner of dress and speech are so very important.
On the question of the Prime Minister speaking, there remains the matter of the appointment of a new Chief Justice. Normally, such appointments should not generate any political heat but when the Official Gazette recently told us that the Acting Chief Justice is appointed to act “until further notice” after an amendment was pushed through parliament at the end of March then, as calypsonian Bumba sang, “They want to know.”
At least we know that Mr Kellman is now “permanently” in the Cabinet, but is he still acting for Dr Denis Lowe?
• Ezra Alleyne is an attorney-at-law and former Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly.
