PEP COLUMN: Time to make a move, Barbados!

Fri, February 10, 2012 - 12:00 AM

With every passing day, Barbadians are sensing the utter futility of our political situation.

In January 2008, we got rid of Owen Arthur and the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration because they were doing little or nothing to protect and advance our nation, and we voted in the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

The DLP, in turn, has gone on to preside over four years of bumbling, visionless inactivity, and now it is being suggested that we should go back to the same old BLP that we rejected a mere four years ago!

Surely, by now, Barbadians must be able to perceive that there is a deep and fundamental flaw in our very system of political and economic governance. Simply put, what we have has outlived its usefulness, and is now producing very little of substance!

The two political parties have gradually sunk into intellectual bankruptcy, and are lacking in visionary ideas and productive initiative and energy. And the same can be said about the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), the other business organisations and large private sector firms that control our economy!

The current system is one in which small, incestuous political and business in-groups run things, and in which the vast majority of working people are consigned to the margins of decision making and control.

It had its origin in the colonial era, and was prettied up, placed within a Westminster-type, two-party, winner-take-all framework, and bestowed upon us by the British at the time of our independence in 1966.

Well, if this system worked for us 30 or 40 years ago, it is certainly not working now, and it needs to be modified! The time has therefore come for Barbados to make the next major step forward in its evolution as a nation!

And that must be a step in the direction of the masses getting much more involved in national decision making and administration, and assuming more direct control of the major institutions.

The Peoples Empowerment Party has determined that this can be and has to be the next step forward simply because the so-called ordinary, working class people have attained a level of education, sophistication, technical expertise, and experience in complicated, cooperative labour processes, that has equipped them to undertake a more direct, hands on role in controlling and administering their own country.

If Barbados is to go forward, the two-party winner-take-all political system must be transformed into a multi-party, proportional representational system, political organization must be extended well beyond the restrictive two-party structure, and the people must be given the right to “recall” and remove non-functioning Parliamentarians.

Our Parliament must also be transformed into a much more inclusive national chamber that contains within it representatives of the collective wisdom and experience of the Barbadian people.

Furthermore, an effective, elected, people-controlled system of local government must replace the existing partisan constituency council system, and local government committees must assume important oversight functions in relation to Government institutions that provide critical services to the people.

And in the private sector, a national Employee Share Ownership Programme (ESOP) must be implemented to convert long standing workers into part owners of the businesses that they work for, while the Social Partnership must be democratised, opened up to genuine people participation, and further expanded.

• The PEP column represents the views of the People’s Empowerment Party.