Atherley pleased at selection of Drakes for the Senate

The man who introduced Crystal Drakes to the Senate as a member of the Opposition has absolutely no problem with her now being named an Independent Senator.

Former Opposition Leader, Bishop Joseph Atherley is in full support of Drake’s appointment to the Upper House and has described her as one of the island’s “brightest stars” who he believes has a significant contribution to make.

Senator Drakes was sworn in by President Dame Sandra Mason as an Independent Senator on Tuesday.

Back in 2018, Bishop Atherley in his position as Opposition Leader nominated Drakes and Caswell Franklyn as his two nominees for the Senate.

And when he formed the now defunct People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP), Drakes joined the party.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Bishop Atherley said Senator Drakes was well-suited for the job as an Independent Senator having done a fantastic job as an Opposition Senator during the last three and a half years and he expected her to continue in that same vein.

“I think Senator Drakes is a marvelous pick by the President. She is a bright, young girl with a genuine interest in the betterment of Barbados and Barbadian people. She is progressive in her thinking and has some good ideas with respect to issues of the economy and growth but also with respect to issues of climate change resilience building and wider environmental issues. She has served in the Senate for the last three and a half years having been appointed by myself and she gave a very good account of herself,” Bishop Atherley said.

“…It does not surprise me therefore that Her Excellency would choose her as one of the Independent Senators at all.

“Certainly there are no hard feelings. I admire the girl and I wish her well and I think that she will make an invaluable contribution to public and parliamentary debate in Barbados and in a wider frame to policy development in Barbados, so there can’t be any hard feelings because I don’t look at that like that at all.

“When I appointed Crystal and Caswell at the time there was no political party of which I was a part. I appointed them when I crossed the floor and I never became part of any formation of a political party until a year later and they would long have been appointed…As for Crystal she was a part of the PdP but she was never interested in the elective political arena or anything like that and she always presented herself within the group as fairly apolitical,” Atherley said.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb