Atherley defends move to start new party

ALLUDING to a number of “heated run-ins” with Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, even before she became the head of the then Opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP), current Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley said he never expected to get a Cabinet position under the current Mottley-led administration.

He made the revelation yesterday during the programme Down to Brass Tacks where he gave some insight into the work being carried out by the People’s Party for Democracy and Development which he heads and sought to clear the air on why he decided to make the shift from the BLP to become Opposition Leader days after a crushing 30-0 victory over the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in May of 2018.

While some called Bishop Atherley a traitor for his actions and suggested that he was disgruntled because he was not named in the Cabinet, he maintained that his decision was because of that crushing 30-0 defeat and the need to preserve the institutional integrity of parliament and democracy of Barbados.

According to Bishop Atherley, “It was not a question of being aggrieved, but having a heightened sense of confirmation of what I felt and knew for a long time. It is no secret within the bosom of the BLP that the current Prime Minister, even before she became Prime Minister, did not want Joseph Atherley to run in an election in 2008, ... in 2013 ... and were she to have had the opportunity to stop me from running in 2018, there are those on the other side, people in positions of knowledge, they would tell you she probably would have stopped me, but my nomination before she came back to office of leadership had taken place.

“There is a history with me and the Prime Minister. So if you don’t want me to run in the election and there were some things that took place in the last campaign, that I really would not perhaps even want to mention... I am saying to you that there is a history between me and Ms. Mottley, which suggested that her preference would be for me not to have been a candidate of the BLP.”

Atherley acknowledged that persons referred to him as a traitor, but said he does not see himself as a “Judas”. “...At the end of the day, though you belong to an organisation, especially a political organisation, though we are loyal to a party, there is a higher sense of calling, a higher level of loyalty and that is to the people of Barbados. My move was to simply see how best I could position myself to pursue the interest of the people of Barbados, not necessarily to pull down the BLP.”

He maintained that he did not agree with some of the decisions that were made after the election. “There was nowhere in the planning of the BLP policy programme in preparation for the election, any discussion to which I was party to that suggested that bus fares in Barbados would have been raised from $2 to $3.50... there was nowhere that was said.” He added that there was no talk of layoffs or any definitive position on going to the International Monetary Fund.

“There was nowhere that suggested that when we were in Opposition as a party we would criticise the DLP for the level of taxation and then we come into the office of Government and then we continue to increase the burden of taxes. Nothing like that was suggested. So it is alright to say you supported these policies, and there are policies that are included in the BLP manifesto document which I supported then and do support now, but it is the implementation of some of these policies, when it comes down to specificities and how it impacts people’s lives.”

He maintained that he will support the Government when it “gets it right”, but will also express an alternative opinion when it is needed. “There is nowhere in the planning of the BLP that we having criticised the DLP for the large amount of monies that they expended on consultancy services and fees. There was nowhere in the discussion to which I was a party of... there was nowhere that the BLP said when we get into Office we will employ a corps of consultants that will double or triple the amount of money that the former administration was spending on that. So it is the specificities with respect to the policy positions that you implement,” he stated.

(JH)