By Marlon Madden
President of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood wants a reformed parliamentary system that ensures a spirit of bipartisanship and that the losing political party in a general election still receives a subvention, even without winning a seat.
Those were among the suggestions put forward by the DLP leader on Monday night, as the Parliamentary Reform Commission (PRC) held a town hall meeting with members of the political party.
Yearwood expressed “sadness” at what he said was the continued lack of cooperation between political parties as he complained that “politics has deteriorated in the last two or three election cycles”.
He said the spirit of bipartisanship was “definitely not something that this party has experienced and that is sad”.
“How do we recapture that bipartisanship? We probably need to define consultation. The Guyanese constitution is one that gives us ideas about what that should look like, because often the view of the consultation is that I call you into a meeting, you sit down for about five minutes and you go through the door and say you ‘talked with the Democratic Labour Party’. No, you have not. You called me to a meeting and that is not consultation,” said Yearwood.
“I would say that I take offence to that kind of approach on behalf of the membership of this party and any right thinking Barbadian as well. We have to get serious about our politics. I believe if you really want to develop this country, you cannot have a situation where half the country is excluded
depending on what shirt or colour you wear, because your government is not in power. Barbados is a small place and you have to realise there is intellectual capital and capacity,” he added.
The DLP leader said in order to avoid “cycles of back and forth and half developments”, political parties in power should seek more to embrace ideas from other political parties.
He argued that too often, projects are started by one political party and not continued by others because “the other doesn’t understand how to continue”.
“I believe we can do better than that,” he said. “A good place to start is how do we achieve real consultation between government and opposition, and one that actually allows informed decision making and not just for the face of box ticking to claim that you are consulting. I find that demeaning and it does not help the democracy.”
In addition, Yearwood insisted that under a reformed parliamentary system, the main opposition party should still receive a subvention even if they did not have a representative in the House of Assembly.
“…The subvention and the systems that were designed to help fund and support political parties, how does the party get that subvention that is available and should be available?
“Whether it has a seat or not, I do not think that was the spirit of how the subvention was designed. That is something that has to be taken very seriously,” said Yearwood.
The DLP is on record calling on the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration, which captured all 30 seats in the May 2018 and January 2022 general elections, to account for the annual $150 000 subvention that was not being paid to any opposition party given that there is none in the House of Assembly.
This call was also supported by former Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley, who broke away from the BLP in 2018 following the general election in that year.
The DLP is expected to submit a report to the PRC in coming weeks, outlining its recommendations for a new-look parliamentary system, which will also include the composition of the Senate, the first-past-the-post electoral system, powers of the prime minister and fixed election dates.
