Government Senator Chris Sinckler has defended political parties as indispensable to Barbados’ democratic and social development, warning that diminishing their role risks undermining the country’s political stability, even though they are not recognised by the Constitution.
Senator Sinckler, the senior minister for foreign affairs, was speaking during Friday’s debate in the Upper House on the Constitutional Amendment Bill. The proposed amendment would trigger a vacancy and by-election not only when a Member of Parliament joins another party but also if they are expelled or resign from their party.
Senator Sinckler rejected suggestions that parties are insignificant to the electoral process.
It was dangerous to diminish the role of parties while simultaneously lamenting declining respect for institutions in society, he said.
“You know, we complain in Barbados about young people having no respect for elderly, having no respect for convention,” he said. “But yet we kind of [try] to move away when it comes to adults, professionals, acting in certain ways because we like to condemn on the one hand, but justify on the other. Very dangerous thing to do precisely in this kind of environment.”
He stressed that modern political parties employ structured systems for vetting prospective candidates and that, as such, if an MP “crosses the floor”, some recourse for voters should be in place. He added that parties are far from being loosely assembled groups.
“When a person presents themselves to a political party, I believe both parties do it now… they now do it… do interviews, we do screenings, some have psychoanalysis. So parties go through a certain rigour.”
Responding to fellow senator, Canon John Rogers, Senator Sinckler said he had been unsettled by the portrayal of parties as disorganised entities.
“The way he was speaking, it was as if a political party was some kind of band of disorganised characters who cobbled themselves together in pursuit of something called office,” he said. “I’m not going to say I take umbrage… but they put me on pause.”
Senator Sinckler placed political parties within the broader sweep of Caribbean history, arguing that they have been “seminal institutions” in shaping regional societies.
“I don’t know anywhere else in the world, but I know in the Caribbean, political parties are seminal institutions that have contributed to the development of our societies in ways unimaginable. From the 1930s and onwards.”
He pointed to the aftermath of the 1937 riots in Barbados and the subsequent labour movement as pivotal moments. Out of the trade union movement, he noted, political parties emerged, driving social and economic transformation.
“I can tell you without that ethos, that movement of social advancement relative to the political dynamics for the working class in Barbados through what we call political parties in Barbados, a lot of things that we enjoy today, frankly would not be available,” Sinckler argued.
He credited political parties with facilitating the rise of the middle class and expanding opportunities for teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and the broader working class.
“The middle class that you see out here in Barbados… the social upward mobility that we see in Barbados and enjoy in Barbados today, are largely because of the existence of political parties,” he said.
Warning against attempts to sideline them on constitutional technicalities, Sinckler added: “We cannot just dismiss political parties. They are long-standing national institutions…. Some people seem to believe that you can pick up a document called the Constitution and because the Constitution does not recognise political parties, you are going to advance an argument that political parties don’t matter or that they don’t matter sufficiently.” (SB)
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