By Rickey Singh, From Nation News Barbados

FOR THE first time in any year since the dawn of political independence in the Caribbean region in the 1960s, a trio of leading women politicians – all current parliamentarians – find themselves on the defensive for differing political/personal reasons and circumstances.

The varying scenarios are currently being played out in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. They involve: The sitting Prime Minister of Jamaica and leader of her incumbent People’s National Party (PNP) – Portia Simpson-Miller; Trinidad and Tobago’s former prime minister and current leader of the parliamentary opposition United National Congress (UNC), Kamla Persad-Bissessar; and here in Barbados, where she is confronted with her own  challenging scenario, is Mia Mottley, leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), a former deputy prime minister.

Mottley’s personal challenge involves the quality of leadership she intends to bring to resolve the future relationship between the party’s Christ Church West constituency and its current parliamentary representative – Maria Agard.

What is at stake is the vital factor of maintaining party unity in a traditionally safe BLP constituency. Last Sunday, Albert Brandford, an independent political correspondent of the Nation asked whether Mottley intends to “deselect Agard?”

That was after Mottley was portrayed in a cartoon vexingly waving a finger with the supposedly uttered words: “There’s only one captain . . .”. Clearly her warning to Agard that she, Mottley, is in charge as the BLP’s “captain”.

However, as the saying goes, “proof of the pudding is in the eating”. And at present, the political scenario appears more like that of the proverbial tail wagging the dog. Time will tell who is “captain” and whose ‘tail’ will be wagging over the BLP’s future leadership.

Right now, former Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar is confronted with an unexpected serious challenge to her leadership that could well determine her future in politics as well as the future of the UNC.

She had first led the party to an unprecedented massive 29-12 landslide parliamentary victory back in May 2010, then surprisingly lost state power this past September when the People’s National Movement

(PNM) was returned to government with a five-seat parliamentary majority in the 41-member House of Representatives.

What is quite astonishing in the post-election political scenario in Trinidad and Tobago is more the unexpected challenge to the ex-Prime Minister’s leadership of the UNC.

After all, she had won that unique battle, as a woman, by surprisingly defeating the party’s then founder-leader – the flamboyant, charismatic Basdeo Panday – in a fiercely fought but recognized democratic election battle.

It was the first time a woman had won the leadership of a major party in Trinidad and Tobago and moved on to also capture the leadership of government. That precedent had previously existed only in Jamaica with Portia Simpson-Miller.

Then, much more popular than her present role as PM  and party leader, she had defied the odds to succeed the retired PJ Patterson to first win leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP) in 2006 then moved on to score  a whopping landslide parliamentary victory to also become Jamaica’s first woman Prime Minister.

It so happened that Persad-Bissesar was to virtually repeat that performance some four years later in May 2010 when she became her country’s first Prime Minister months after her victory as leader of the UNC.

Currently, however, while Simpson-Miller is contemplating the date for new elections for Jamaica – with signs pointing within the first quarter of 2016 –in Trinidad Tobago former male loyalists known for their unswerving loyalty to Persad-Bissessar as party leader and Prime Minister, are currently fiercely campaigning AGAINST her for leadership of the United National Congress.

The cynics may observe that in party politics “all things are possible” but others would rightly ask: If there are no limits to political indecencies?

After all among these former male “comrades” (sic) of Kamla Persad-Bissessar are a few professional who had neither challenged Basdeo Panday for leadership of the UNC, nor ever publicly disagreed with her on governance or other issues of national importance.

So why their sudden interest in competing against her for leadership of the UNC – less than ten weeks after last September’s parliamentary elections? More in the mortar than the proverbial pestle? More later!

• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.

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