Two prominent political scientists have scored Leader of the Opposition Ralph Thorne relatively high for his reply to Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s Budget, saying it hit key marks in an attempt to keep the administration “on its toes”. But they have suggested that his absence from the House of Assembly for most of the debate on Wednesday did little to project him as a future prime minister.
Thorne, who 24 hours earlier had presented his reply to Mottley’s budget proposals after crossing the floor 39 days ago to become the sole voice of the opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in the House, was not in his seat as an array of government MPs targeted his speech or when the prime minister wrapped up the three-day debate.
While Dr Kristina Hinds, the Head of the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill declared she had a problem with Thorne’s non-attendance, regional pollster Peter Wickham said he considered it a “useful political strategy” given the opposition’s sole seat in the 30-seat legislature.
And while Barbadians wait to hear Thorne’s explanation for staying away, the DLP remained silent on the matter involving their political leader.
“I don’t have a word to say,” General Secretary Steve Blackett replied when Barbados TODAY asked him to comment on Thorne’s absence.
A day after Thorne’s reply in which he attacked Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw over the discovery of a cheque written to her by a contractor in her constituency office, she countered by presenting letters dating back to 2009 that raised questions about transactions involving the senior counsel and a government lawyer.
Wickham told Barbados TODAY: “His not being in Parliament was consistent with what I know of the gentleman, and the reality is that, had he been there, he would perhaps had been rising on points of order, which ultimately would not have made a huge difference because, in the final analysis, there was reading from documentation.
“So, perhaps the fact that he wasn’t there was a useful defence strategy on his part, even though it looked kind of bad. But I think in a situation where you are alone in the Opposition, sometimes it may make sense for you not to be there because it is always harder in this political realm for a person to attack you when you are not in your seat to defend yourself because people often think it is a bit of unfairness going on.”
Wickham also thought it was uncharacteristic of Bradshaw to stridently attack the opposition leader as she referenced the letters which she made documents of the House.
Pointing to Thorne’s allegations, Wickham added: “The response of Bradshaw was uncharacteristic because we don’t know we have ever seen her in that mode before. But she was clearly in the defensive mode…. One could argue that it was an Owen Arthur-type defence and response where she thought to use the fact that, ‘let he who is without sin, cast the first stone’…and ‘if you think you can cast aspersions, I can cast some too, and I have documentation that can work’.”
But, Wickham said he thought the deputy prime minister gave a “solid” political defence against Thorne’s allegations that would have “put him on the back foot” had he been in the House.
He went further to dismiss notions of Thorne as a future leader of Barbados, given his absence from Parliament.
Wickham said he was more comfortable seeing him as a Leader of the Opposition and having to make a presentation on behalf of the DLP. However, the political scientist argued that while Thorne gave a “good account” of himself in the budget reply and “put up a good fight and keep the government on its toes”, he doesn’t believe people see him as their next prime minister.
“In terms of Thorne as a leader, I think that the budget reply that he gave was reasonable in touching all the points. In terms of his . . . behaviour in the context of a future leader, I think it is clear to me that Thorne is probably not going to lead Barbados. I am not convinced that the vast majority of people who watched Thorne saw him as the next prime minister, and were watching him in that context,” Wickham said.
Dr Hinds, a former independent senator, gave Thorne a failing grade for not attending the final stages of the budget debate.
“The point about Mr Thorne’s absence…that did not sit particularly well with me, to be totally honest. This is now the Leader of the Opposition, and there are no other representatives of the Democratic Labour Party in the House of Assembly. So, it is imperative that this one member be present. And I am not being unrealistic, people need to take breaks, but this is not a taking of a break that we saw. This was absent for the most part,” she said.
“If it is that you are going to take on a role such as this, leading the Opposition, being the lone voice of the Opposition in the House of Assembly, having newly rejoined the Democratic Labour Party, and taking up the helm as their political leader, I think that duty calls.”
She added: “This means that Mr Thorne needed to be present for far more of that debate than he did. I know it would be very difficult, and I know that he is a human being and it is hard to take that sustained criticism, but that’s the job that he left the Barbados Labour Party and joined the DLP to do.”
Dr Hinds said she did not know what to make of the allegations levelled by Deputy PM Bradshaw against Thorne. She contended that Bradshaw did not seem to know if the matter of 20 years ago had been resolved in the intervening period.
“I think what the Deputy Prime Minister was attempting to do was to make us think twice about the character of Mr Thorne. It is a technique that one can use, but just as one might say that Mr Thorne put some allegations in the public domain that he could not necessarily substantiate, one could say similarly for Ms Bradshaw,” the senior lecturer in political science suggested. “He is a relatively new political force as Leader of the Opposition, and perhaps some of the enthusiasm surrounding him may need to be tempered.”
Nonetheless, Dr Hinds shared Wickham’s view that the opposition leader played his role well in keeping the government on its toes.
She argued that unlike when there was no opposition and the government could afford to deal with issues at a general level, Thorne’s persistent questions and claims, whether true or false, pushed the ministers to dig deeper into matters and to produce more substantial explanations.
Thorne could not be reached for comment up to the time of publication.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
