Former Government Senator Lucille Moe – who, for months, had been absent from the Senate – is now emerging as a campaign strategist for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) ahead of next month’s general elections.
Barbados TODAY has also been informed that David Bowen, who worked with Barbados Labour Party (BLP) St Lucy candidate Peter Phillips in the 2018 poll, is now the Dems’ campaign manager, along with long-time DLP member Steve Blackett.
DLP General Secretary Derek Alleyne late Thursday evening confirmed the developments amid swirling rumours that Moe, who was long thought to be a personal friend of Prime Minister Mia Mottley, would serve as the DLP’s campaign manager for the January 19, 2022 polls.
“She is not the campaign manager, she is assisting the party with strategic operations. That is the most I can tell you. I didn’t even get my president to confirm that but enough information has gone across in my party that I know that she is part of the team,” Alleyne told Barbados TODAY.
“David Bowen is now managing our campaign and Steve Blackett is the other coordinator. The two of them are doing different things and this other young lady, Ms Moe, has come in to offer strategic advice. But she is not the campaign manager,” he reiterated.
Earlier tonight, DLP President Verla DePeiza would neither confirm nor deny that Moe had joined her campaign team.
“I am not confirming anything,” she told Barbados TODAY, but noted that “our team has strengths that we draw on from many different spheres”.
Within days of the BLP’s May 2018 election victory, Moe was appointed Senator and asked to serve as Minister of Information, Broadcasting, and Public Affairs. But two years later, in June 2020, Prime Minister Mottley, amid a flurry of adjustments, removed Senator Moe, who had also acted as Education Minister, from her Cabinet.
Though still a member of the Upper House, Senator Moe was absent for months on end with no explanation, prompting calls from Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn for her seat to be declared vacant.
In September, after more than six months away, Moe returned to the Senate for the last time, complaining that provisions had not been made for the sittings to be conducted virtually.
Numerous efforts to reach the Government Senator were unsuccessful up to press time.
Alleyne said he could not speak definitively on the rationale for the decision to bring Moe into the campaign team, as his role as general secretary was to mobilise the party’s branches behind their various candidates. Nevertheless, he said the decision was likely based on the party’s intention to leave no stone unturned in its pursuit of the majority seats in the 30-member Parliament.
“Politics is about who gets what, when and how. That is my philosophy,” said Alleyne.
“The Democratic Labour Party was put to the sword and we are trying to build an institutional framework to ensure that Barbadians get the best representation that they can ever get.
“I think that we have got the mix and any person that wants to be part of our team, we accept them as long as they are going to fall into the precepts and the concepts that we believe are important for the better improvement of Barbados,” the General Secretary added.
Responding to the developments, political pollster and political consultant, Peter Wickham declared there was no conflict of interest emerging from Senator Moe’s decision.
“Lucille Moe is a professional like me. She is a political consultant, as I am, and people need to get to a stage where they understand that a political consultant is a professional. Your willingness to go to doctor A versus doctor B is not a political consideration, so why should a political strategist or consultant like Lucille not have the right to work for whoever is employing her?” asked Wickham.
“It is clear that she is not the strategist for the Barbados Labour Party and she needs to look for work, so she’s decided,” the pollster added.
But he did suggest that Moe’s choice of a client may have been “ill-advised” given the low likelihood of success, and in the face of two recent defeats, apparently in the recent St Lucian election and another in the Cayman Islands.
“I would be concerned about walking into a third [defeat], but that is my only reason for saying that if I were her, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But then I don’t know what kind of money they’re paying her. It might be an attractive paycheque,” Wickham added.
The pollster noted that much like himself and current BLP strategist, Hartley Henry, Moe’s foundations are with the Dems and in that way, she was simply returning to her roots.
He added that Moe’s seemingly friendly relationship with Prime Minister Mottley appeared to be under strain ever since her sacking from the Cabinet.
“I think the Democratic Labour Party sees it as a coup for them to get somebody on board who was a Government senator, but I don’t know if I necessarily feel that way, because the reality is that I don’t know if it’s going to help them to win,” said Wickham. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb
Kimberley Cummins and Anesta Henry also contributed to this story.
