THE former three-term prime minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur, has publicly announced his withdrawal from any further involvement in the country’s elective politics.

The respected 63-year-old economist would have been well known in this country — where he lived and worked for years with the Jamaica Bauxite Institute and married his first wife, Jamaican Beverly Batchelor, long before becoming involved in Barbados’ parliamentary politics for some three decades.

Add an additional 10 years and it would be a total of 40 years’ involvement in local politics with the 75-year-old Barbados Labour Party (BLP), of which he has been its interrupted leader prior to being elevated to the post of prime minister in 1994. He continued in that office until January 2008, when electoral defeat came with the return to state power of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

Out of government, Arthur was not enjoying the level of passionate national response of a long-serving Prime Minister PJ Patterson, who had opted to bow out from leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP) in 2006, paving the way for the rise of Jamaica’s first woman head of government, Portia Simpson Miller.

Nevertheless, Arthur remained influential and popular enough to return to the party’s leadership to steer it into this year’s general election of February 21. Victory eluded it by a mere two seats, as the incumbent DLP of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart was returned with a slim 16-14 majority in the 30-member House of Assembly.

Now that he has made known his decision to withdraw, first to his party’s decision-makers and, second, his faithful St Peter constituents, Arthur is settling down to write his autobiography as others consider how best to express appreciation for his three decades in public service, including possibly honouring him with Barbados’ highest national honour, Knighthood of St Andrew.

Award of Knighthood?

As otherwise stated by this columnist, once Arthur is so disposed, such an honour would be quite fitting for a professional economist, international consultant and long-serving politician who had also distinguished himself in the service of Caricom.

Even a cursory glance at the list of names who adorn the gallery of Knights and Dames for “extraordinary and outstanding achievement and merit services in Barbados or to humanity at large”, would be sufficient for impartial observers to welcome the inclusion of Owen Seymour Arthur.

With all the bitterness and viciousness of last February’s general elections behind them, Barbadians across the political divide are strenuously coping with stressful cost-of-living challenges.

It is felt, however, that objective independent assessments of Arthur’s intellectual contributions — in and out of government — could readily welcome his elevation as a Knight of St Andrew in this Caricom member country where the Queen remains Barbados’ head of state.

In my years as a journalist covering the Caribbean Community I came to recognise Arthur’s voice among the strongest, most eloquent and persuasive in support of meaningful regional economic integration and functional co-operation while he served as prime minister and held lead responsibility for establishment of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) that remains a work in progress.

Contending with Destiny

As one of the contributors to the valued publication, Contending with Destiny The Caribbean in the 21st Century — published on December 31, 2000 for the University of the West Indies by Ian Randle Publishers — Arthur had outlined six “strategic dimensions” in articulating economic policy options for the Caribbean in the 21st century. It is a contribution worth revisiting.

Subsequently hailed by the iconic novelist and social commentator George Lamming for reflecting in that analysis a “most extraordinary statement” by a political leader of the Caricom region”, Arthur had observed:

“To realise its full potential, the Caribbean needs to move to a new form of governance. No Caribbean society can succeed unless all of its resources are mobilised into support of national development… However, the unfortunate aspect of the Westminster model of governance we have inherited is that it has encouraged a ‘to the victors, the spoils mentality’.”

And this ‘mentality’, in the reasoning of Arthur, “has ensured that any (election) time, almost half the population of any given Caribbean society is marginalised and alienated from participation in the development of their society…

“There has been too destructive a competition for political office; too heavy a concentration of power in the hands of ruling elites; an unhealthy preservation of anti-development party and tribal divisions…”

This situation, as is well known, remains a sad reality across our region’s multi-party political culture in the second decade of the 2lst century — including, of course, Jamaica.

Grim scenario

Arthur’s political detractors, who may wish to see his back, could not have been amused by his strident denunciation last week of the economic state of Barbados at this time of his departure from elective politics.

As reported in an interview with the Barbados Daily Nation, Arthur recalled that having worked in Jamaica from 1974 to 1981, he had seen “first-hand what happened to a country when a society no longer had a viable economy, such as Barbados’ with five years of zero growth…”

Deeming the prevailing domestic situation “probably Barbados’ darkest hour in its history”, he said “it is vital that the voice of the (Opposition) Labour Party be heard”.

He contends that “it can take a generation to bring back an economy”, and that Barbados has now reached the stage where the Government had expanded the local loans limit by over Bds$1 billion) in order to issue more bonds in which none of the financial institutions were willing to invest…”

“The system,” he argues, “is liquid, but the word has gone out that the bonds of the Government of Barbados are not of an investment grade. People are not willing to invest in junk. You just can’t keep borrowing a million dollars a year…”

Clearly, in painting such a distressing economic picture of Barbados, Owen Arthur could hardly be thinking of being honoured, in his new life away from elective politics, as a Knight of St Andrew.

Interestingly, while Arthur was prime minister, this honour was bestowed on former DLP leader and Prime Minister Erskine Sandiford (now Sir Erskine and ambassador to China).

In 1994, Arthur had successfully piloted a no-confidence motion against the second-term administration of Sandiford that led to new general election and return of the BLP to state power. Such is the nature of party politics, and so now the end of an era in Barbadian party politics for Owen Arthur.