Thorne’s next move: head to DLP, say pundits

Top political pundits were Monday predicting that newly sworn-in Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne will seek to mend ties with the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) that he severed 20 years ago in a bid to boost his political position.

Hours after Thorne took up office, University of the West Indies academic and Independent Senator Dr Kristina Hinds, pollster Peter Wickham and retired university academic Dr George Belle told Barbados TODAY in separate interviews they strongly believed that Thorne’s next course of action would be approaching the DLP which has been out of Parliament for the last six years.

If Thorne is accepted back into the DLP fold, the political scientists suggested the ousted party would finally find a silver lining in a cloud of political uncertainty after a second resounding whitewash at the polls.

But a return would mean dark clouds immediately hovering over Dr Ronnie Yearwood’s future as the political leader of the Dems, one of them noted.

After two unsuccessful bids to win a seat on a DLP ticket in the St Michael North constituency in 1994 and 1999, Thorne abruptly shifted allegiance, campaigning for the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in the 2003 poll. But he did not contest a seat until his eventual election victory in 2018, in the first of Mia Mottley’s landslide wins for the Labour Party that shut the DLP out of the House of Assembly for the first time since the party entered elective politics in 1956.

But Dr Hinds cautioned that the move would likely lead to the fall of Dr Yearwood’s leadership.

“Aligning with a party would provide [Thorne] with some benefits,” she said. “It makes sense; he won’t be on his own, so to speak. If he aligns with an established mass-based party, which in this case would only be the Democratic Labor Party, it will definitely alter the composition of power in the Democratic Labour Party because he will be the only member of Parliament within the Democratic Labour Party, effectively making him the political leader of the party.

“One of the other things that could result is that if he’s able to join the Democratic Labour Party, that could mean that the DLP would be able to receive the subvention for an opposition political party that contested the last general election. The Democratic Labour Party contested the last election, he would be the opposition leader and therefore, if my interpretation is correct, allow the DLP to receive this subvention. And from listening to Dr Yearwood, it is clear that this is something that they require. So it could be quite a convenient arrangement for the DLP and restore some credibility to them by having an MP.”

She added that as a well-known lawyer, the senior counsel could bring fresh followers who otherwise may not be interested in the DLP.

“Technically speaking, he is looking to replace Ronnie,” said Wickham. “That is a critical thing. The way how the DLP constitution is written is that once Ralph is accepted as a member he automatically becomes the political leader of the DLP. If he goes with the DLP, I would imagine that he would go with two high-profile DLP people [as senators] and my preference is that he goes for people who are relatively young, who do not have the baggage associated with the DLP of old.”

Dr Belle said time will tell if Thorne’s decision to cross the floor had political underpinnings or was as straightforward as he was trying to make it appear.

He said: “What we will not get for now is any other relations he might have established, any other influences that might be in place in relation to himself that would impact on him leaving the party. And when we get that kind of information, it would better allow us to assess how genuine the reasons given [for leaving] would be. Because you can make up a set of positions to say that you are dissatisfied and so on.”

Dr Belle said that if Thorne’s true intentions of leaving the party had to do with his former affiliation with the DLP, it could undermine and “corrode” his justification for leaving the party.

He explained: “The senators he picks are indicators of who he might otherwise have ties with, and it will undermine some of the reasons that he gave for leaving the party . . . so it is not surprising that he didn’t say anything about who he would want as a senator because that would be very revealing. It could reveal the interests influencing him and the direction he’s going.”

After Thorne was sworn in, he told journalists that his philosophical and political views were not in line with the government’s on policy and legislation. Rejecting the notion of a blindly obedient follower, he said his parliamentary contributions often opposed the government. Declaring that his conscience meant something, Thorne said he was worried that the economy and society were in crisis.

Dr Hinds and Wickham said they were not surprised about the reasons Thorne gave for crossing the floor.

Becoming the Opposition Leader allows Thorne to handpick two senators but he told reporters he would not reveal them until they were sworn in. That swearing-in is set for Tuesday morning.

Thorne appeared on the political scene in September 1994 at the age of 35 offering himself up as a candidate for St Michael North constituency under a DLP ticket. He was unsuccessful at the polls then and five years later in the subsequent elections.

After switching allegiance to the BLP in 2003, he finally entered the House for Christ Church South in 2018 and was reelected in 2022.

sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb