by ALBERT BRANDFORD, Political Correspondent

Sabbatical (n); Any extended period of leave from one's customary work. – Dictionary.com

IT WAS with a mixture of amusement and sadness that I read Peter Wickham's offering last week (6/25/08) purporting to welcome Clyde Mascoll into the fold of columnists for the NATION newspapers.

Amused, because I recalled that Wickham was one of those who supported a call by some of the so-called "elders" of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) for not only Mascoll, but also Denis Kellman and Dr David Estwick (then deputy to Mascoll as Leader of the Opposition) to be expelled from that party.

That was when David Thompson's resurgence was probably at its peak, and Wickham was speaking to a NATION reporter at the DLP's headquarters shortly after an "extraordinary" general conference in 2005 to choose someone to lead the party in anticipated general election.

"I am wondering whether the Dems should not look to consolidate their position as a party and take out, physically remove, the individuals (Mascoll, Kellman and Estwick) who are causing trouble if that is the position," he said.

"I mean they are candidates now, but the party has the power to determine whether they are candidates in the next election."

Wickham opined that Thompson was running out of options and he felt that the time for negotiation and kid gloves had ended, which meant that if the DLP president needed to "shed blood, shed it now, get it over and done with".

"If it means he has to take out people, take them out now," Wickham advised.

It was sad, because I saw what I thought was a not so subtle attempt by Wickham, not just to "spin" the history of that period, but to rewrite it.

What led me to consult Dictionary.com for the word "sabbatical" was Wickham's comment that Mascoll "easily assumed the leadership of the DLP when David Thompson sought what we now understand was a sabbatical".

Wickham used the word as a noun, and in the meaning given above, Thompson could not have taken a sabbatical when in September 2001 he resigned for the second time from the unpaid post of president of the DLP – chastising unnamed members for failing to live up to the party's principles – but pledged to continue as Leader of the Opposition until the next election.

Mascoll can carry his own water, but I have a problem with that type of commentary.

'Right stuff'

"Like Mascoll, this author also assumed that he would one day become Prime Minister of this country," Wickham wrote, "since he seemed to have all the 'right stuff'. It was, however, clear that we were both wrong, since the public was even less interested in Mascoll than it was in Thompson at that time."

That seems to suggest that because the public was more interested in Thompson that Mascoll did not have the "right stuff".

Yet, Wickham goes on to say: "Today [Mascoll] is a former junior minister in the BLP administration, while few would disagree that he could have just as easily been the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in a young DLP administration, with the prospect of becoming the Gordon Brown of Barbados."

Really!?

Given the reasoning of Wickham himself, Mascoll's greatest failing then was not to accept being second fiddle to Thompson.

Only the facts will help the public to reason clearly on this particular period in our political history.

In 2001, Thompson received overwhelming support as president and political leader of the DLP at its annual conference in August, having earlier put his resignation to the party but it was rejected.

By September, he had led the party to a defeat in the St Thomas by-election and abruptly resigned by way of a letter which reached one section of the media before it reached the General Council which was in session the same night.

He, however, remained Leader of the Opposition with Kellman being the other DLP MP, while Mascoll became president, and for the first time the DLP's political leadership had come from the Senate.

In 2003, under Mascoll's leadership, the DLP captured seven seats in Parliament with several seats marginally lost, and with a significant increase in the party's popular support – up from 38 per cent under Thompson's leadership to almost 44 per cent.

Mascoll was elected Leader of the Opposition with a reported ratio of 5-1-1 - Kellman and Thompson having voted for themselves.

In less that a year after becoming the DLP's leader, Mascoll would receive letters later made public) from two senior DLP members and long-standing stalwarts, former Deputy Prime Minister Philip Greaves and Peter Morgan (now deceased) requesting, essentially, that he step aside in favour of Thompson as Leader of the Opposition.

During this time, the results of a CADRES poll for November 2004 revealed that the DLP was leading in 20 seats with 48 per cent of those polled wanting a change in government. The figures moved to 21 seats and 52 per cent wanting change in an unpublished poll for November 2005.

All this time, Mascoll was still Leader of the Opposition, but had offered his resignation, in August 2005, to the Parliamentary Group, and it was not accepted.

Against the wishes of his supporters, Mascoll had given up the presidency of the DLP to Freundel Stuart in 2004 thereby creating an opening for Thompson to successfully challenge Stuart for the presidency in August 2005.

Political record

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Wickham writes of Mascoll's political record being "less than stellar" but Mascoll's tenure of leadership in the DLP was associated with the restructuring of the party's finances (which he spoke about in the media in May 2004), the establishment of the Elders Group, widespread involvement of members in the party's manifesto, along with the introduction of mini-manifestos to the political process.

Any objective analysis of the facts would suggest that performance was not the criterion used to determine Mascoll's suitability for the post; rather a more subjective set of criteria might have been used to evaluate the capacity of the DLP to win a general election under his leadership.

An intriguing footnote to Wickham's column was his assumption that Mascoll "would be seen as a liability to the BLP".

But Wickham also believes that Mascoll has yet again emerged as the "chosen one" within that party.

As events have shown, Mascoll was not the "chosen one" in the Dems – despite the facts – and he did not retain a seat in the last election to be regarded as the BLP's "chosen one".

The political consultant must be well aware that any "chosen one" ought to have a safe seat in Parliament. And while he described St Michael North West as one of the safest DLP seats in 1999, it should not be forgotten that under Thompson's leadership, the DLP suffered its worst ever defeat in the 26-2 margin in that year with Mascoll being one of the casualties.

Wickham's hostility towards Mascoll and his "spin" for the DLP have now become fungible.