Owen Arthur ‘Hits’ Mia Mottley, Again – Clyde Mascoll, Clear Heir Apparent, With Kerrie Symmonds as Placeholder

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Mia Mottley

Owen Arthur ‘Hits’ Mia Mottley, Again – Clyde Mascoll, Clear Heir Apparent, With Kerrie Symmonds as Placeholder  


By Pachamama

The Nation Newspaper today carries the essential components of an internal party memorandum from Owen Seymour Arthur (OSA) to Kerrie Symmonds. A memo which is reported to have expressed a ‘lack of confidence’ in Mia Amor Mottley (MAM) as leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), the official  opposition, in the Parliament of Barbados. This comes after last fortnight’s revelations that the same OSA had called a significant policy initiative by MAM as a ‘gimmick’.  Indeed, these are amongst the most sever blows that have ever been delivered to any political leader in the history of Barbadian politics. Maybe in the history of Christendom. 

Arthur's animus towards Mottley is now clearly too deep for this party to present any semblance of a united front against a weakened Democratic Labour Party (DLP), far less play a larger role in helping the country to navigate the presently deep and widening economic circumstances. These public disclosures are indeed the tip of the iceberg of the deeply negative personal relationship between Arthur and Mottley that have built up over several years. Arthur has also expressed disappointment about the circumstances which led to Mottley’s most recent elevation to the leadership of the BLP, as happened after the recent elections. 

Both Arthur and Mottley seem, for this moment, to be working for Fruendal Stuart and the governing Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Bobby Morris’s work, as a chief political adviser to Stuart, is being made much less difficult these days. For there is nothing that is more effective that this government could do to avoid a robust debate about the economy, than this public war of words between the titans in the BLP. A self-inflicted wound that harms the possibilities of the BLP forming the next government, as some are predicting those new elections could be expected long ahead of scheduled. Remember, we have had general elections only about six months ago. We would be the last to suggest that there is any large-scaled conspiracy between the parties involved. However, we are persuaded that factions will benefit from these events. In none of these scenarios would MAM benefit from Arthur’s escalating and public broadsides. Neither will the BLP, in the short run. 

Our leanings on the experience of a renowned Caribbean political consultant have led us to the determination that OSA still feels obligated to Mascoll, who may now be free of his academic pursuits. Mascoll, as a leader of the then DLP opposition, had assisted Arthur in ways which some still consider not to have been in the interests of the then opposition DLP. For this he has paid a high price. This personal obligation deeply inspires OSA to kill two birds with a single stone. That Arthur senses that an election may very well be the only way out of the political-economic crisis which the country now faces. In those circumstances, he is ill-prepared to allow his nemesis, from within, to be allowed an open field between herself and Illaro Court. That Arthur has determined that there are slim pickings for leadership within the BLP but will be content to have Kerrie Symmonds be a placeholder with the understanding that he (Arthur) will demit office and create the circumstances in Saint Peter for Mascoll to be then elected and thereafter assume his ‘rightly’ place at the leadership of the BLP with the help of a still numerical majority, on the opposition benches, which Arthur believes he still controls. Then a general election could be justly called, in Arthur's mind at least. For Mia, the political undertakers are busily preparing the arrangements and we predict no set of circumstances in which she will be able to avoid their intentions or the vengeance of the god of the BLP, Owen Seymour Arthur. 

Pachamama is a social commentator