THE HEALING PROCESS in the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) seems to have become a little more difficult following the announcement of two new senators by Opposition Leader Owen Arthur yesterday.
It has left one candidate contemplating his future with the party, and another long-standing member expressing concern about how it was handled and the implications for healing.
Arthur has named attorneys Santia Bradshaw, the St Michael South East candidate, and Kerrie Symmonds, the St James South candidate, to be the BLP’s new representatives in the Senate to replace Liz Thompson and Arthur Holder.
However, according to the latter two, they were not even told as a matter of courtesy that they were going to be replaced.
“I learnt of the change via the news media this evening. It was not communicated to me otherwise. One would have hoped that comrades who speak of healing would have treated you with a little more courtesy than that,” said Thompson in a telephone interview She was on her way to attend meetings in London, England, and Paris, France.
The former Cabinet minister and St James South representative said this was the second time she had to rely on the media for information relating to this issue, and this was disappointing.
“Arthur [Holder] and I were requested to put our resignations at [the new Opposition Leader’s] disposal on Thursday.
I got further news on the party leader’s intention via the [SATURDAY SUN] . . . . Party leaders can make changes as they wish without reference to anyone, but comrades who speak of healing would have spoken directly to you, and you would not have to hear it on the news,” Thompson said.
Attorney Holder, when contacted, asked who had been appointed and said he would wait to hear what was said by the party leader before he responded to not being reappointed.
“I will review it most carefully. I will discuss it with my wife and make a determination as to my future,” he said.
Quizzed on whether he was prepared to remain a candidate for the party given the manner in which the exercise was handled, Holder said he would hold a meeting with his St Michael Central branch’s executive and would determine his way forward thereafter.
“I will speak to them and they will speak to me, and by Friday, I will make a definitive statement on my political future with the Barbados Labour Party,” he said.
Holder, who was appointed to the Senate by recently ousted Opposition Leader Mia Mottley, said he was not bitter at being unable to travel to a two-week Commonwealth parliamentary seminar from November 14 to 27. That seminar would have taken him to England, Brussels and Scotland.
“There is a bigger picture here, and I see it,” he said.
Party insiders last night told the DAILY NATION that though Arthur said he wanted to deal with the Government on the economy, neither Bradshaw or Symmonds had experience on such matters.
They, therefore, saw the appointments as replacing people who supported Mottley.
