Submitted by Peter Thompson, MBA CFRE – CEO, Remote Work (Barbados) Inc.
OVER THREE YEARS AGO, on the occasion of the election of our first President by the House of Assembly, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley evoked Errol Barrow’s memory: “As cautioned by our first prime minister . . . . we ought no longer to be found loitering on colonial premises . . . We must seek to redefine our definition of self, of state, and the Barbados brand, in a more complex, fractured and turbulent world. Our country and people must dream big dreams and fight to realise them.”
The Barbados Constitutional Reform Commission, in contrast, seemingly seeks to preserve the plantation, remain loitering on colonial premises, and evade the constitutional evolution that the country urgently requires.
The most serious deficiency in our current Constitution is that it allows for gravely undemocratic outcomes of national elections. In 2018 and 2022 the election results denied up to 30 per cent of our electorate of any representation in the House of Assembly. The current Constitution calls for a Leader of the Opposition who enjoys the support of the largest number of members of the House who do not support the Government. This is an absolute necessity for our governance to function effectively.
Forced to amend Constitution
There are so many times that our Constitution required that there be a Leader of the Opposition that the Government was forced to amend the Constitution in 2021 to make provision for the outcome of the previous election. This obliges the President to pretend to also be the Leader of the Opposition and act in his/her discretion whenever the Constitution calls for an active role of the Leader of the Opposition.
The embarrassing spectacle of members of the House who were elected on a Government ticket then crossing the floor to be set up as a pretend opposition in direct conflict with the expressed intention of their constituents is a travesty. It makes us a laughing stock.
The most urgent requirement for a revised Constitution is effectively to remove the possibility of this happening for a third time.
To do this we should eliminate the first-past-the-post electoral system, which leads to lopsided results at variance with voter intention.
We need to move to proportional representation elections where it is certain that second parties will gain representation by getting at least four per cent of the votes cast.
Under proportional representation in the 2022 election the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) administration would have won by a landslide and gained a huge majority of 22 seats in the House, but the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) would have won eight seats. This would have given us a functional Leader of the Opposition, and working Public Accounts Committee, and properly constituted Judicial and Legal Service Commission, etc.
Constituencies disappear
What happens to constituency representation under proportional representation? All constituencies disappear . . . Barbados is much too small to be carved up into this maze of constituencies. A constituency of only 5 000 registered voters enables rum and corn beef politics because at that scale vote buying is a winning strategy.
Jobs like fixing potholes and providing aid to house fire victims properly belong to a professional and accountable public service. Politicians have no business at all using these services to constituents as a way of currying favour and buying votes.
Eliminating all constituencies and voting for the House of Assembly by national proportional representation from party lists has other very welcome effects in addition to being more democratic. It has the potential to break the calcified stranglehold that the BLP/DLP exercises over our current reality and allows small parties to have a realistic probability of parliamentary representation.
Since third parties will gain representation in the House of Assembly by getting at least four per cent of the votes cast, we can look forward to a viable Green Party, perhaps a Rastafarian Party. With proportional representation we would have parliamentary voices which loudly keep critical issues like the Auditor General’s Report, environmental protection, gender violence, youth unemployment, etc, on the national agenda.
The choice before Barbados is clear: we can either truly honour Errol Barrow’s vision by embracing proportional representation, or we can continue to “loiter on colonial premises” with an electoral system that stifles diverse voices. With proportional representation, we wouldn’t just gain a functional opposition – we’d open the door to a more vibrant democracy where Green Party advocates could champion environmental protection, where youth movements could demand accountability, and where every significant political perspective would have a chance at representation. This isn’t just electoral reform; it’s about finally completing our journey from colony to modern democracy, and giving Barbadians the truly representative government they deserve.
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