PdP ‘will fade away’ – Belle

After two years in office there are still no viable alternatives to the Mia Mottley administration, according to veteran political scientist Dr George Belle.

And he has predicted that the opposition People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) and its leader Bishop Joseph Atherley will soon “fade away”, while the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) struggles to recover from its historic 30-nil defeat at the polls in May 2018.

Dr Belle was appearing Sunday night on CBC Television’s The People’s Business, which reviewed the Barbados Labour Party’s second year in office. There were no representatives from opposition parties.

He said: “That party that [Bishop Atherley] recently established has not yet demonstrated that it has a social base. It is a creation out of a parliamentary manoeuvre and that is not how you build or sustain a political party,”

“I think we can predict quite easily that that party will fade away. Bishop Atherley was in a bit of an embarrassing position and I think he had aspirations for a cabinet post and since that did not materialise, an opposition leader was created. But the prospects for a viable opposition party are still poor.”

Shortly after the election, Bishop Atherley crossed the floor to occupy the lone opposition seat in Parliament . He then formed the PdP with a small shadow cabinet to scrutinize the policy decisions taken by the Mottley administration.

Describing this and other recent political parties as “mock parties”, Dr Belle argued that such organisations are based merely on “personalities and egos”.

“They will find it difficult to pull people behind them and that is why [alternative parties] did so poorly in the last election and they will in the future find it difficult to do so,” he further predicted.

But the political scientist hailed the DLP as the one surviving party with a social base, despite its lack of representation in either house of Parliament. For this reason, the political scientist argued it was the only movement that would withstand the test of time.

He argued that unresolved issues relating to succession in the party’s leadership continue to linger given his perceived “poor” performance of president Verla De Peiza.

Consequently, he believes she will soon be challenged by some of the party’s former leaders who were rejected at the polls in 2018.

Dr Belle told the programme: “It is very likely that they will return to a last fight before that matter is settled,” he said, while eyeing former Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler as a possible suitor, despite recently being named to a special advisory group set up by the current government.

“If Sinckler is currently re-emerging, it would have implications for the present and future leadership of DLP and again the BLP may be playing politics with that [appointment] because if he goes over and compromises himself, the DLP will be very dissatisfied with that. On the other hand he may start to rebuild an image with Barbadians that he was not ‘all bad’.

“It is a game being played on two sides and Mr. Sinckler has been very careful so far and I think that is because he is preparing himself for some future role within his own party.”

The academic noted the current administration would continue to operate under a peaceful political environment in the absence of mobilised opposition and cooperative trade union and private sector movements.

“The only feasible opposition is the DLP, but it is in a mess in terms of its leadership,” he said. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb