Intrigue continues in Barbados around ruling party rebels

(Barbados Nation) They are the 11 dissatisfied Members of Parliament (MPs) who have been seeking an “urgent audience” with Prime Minister Freundel Stuart.

They comprise eight ministers in the 19-member Cabinet and three backbenchers.

Their main reason for doing so was to discuss matters of “grave concern” pertaining to his leadership and “to chart a path forward for the retention of our party in Government”.

Since the publication of the contents of a letter to this intent in the SUNDAY SUN, some of them have publicly denied any knowledge of the letter or any issues with Stuart for that matter.

Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler at the weekend said he had no comment on the issue.

But last night on the Government-owned CBCTV8 he went as far to deny any knowledge of any attempt to replace Prime Minister Stuart.

“I’m not dealing with any of that. I have no comment on that; I know nothing about that other than what I read in the Press,” he said.

Minister of Health Donville Inniss would “neither admit nor deny” anything appearing in the media.

He said “if there are indeed internal discussions on matters surrounding the future of the party, such discussions ought to remain
in the party and not be put out there in the public domain”.

However, the DAILY NATION is sticking to its story.

The newspaper has further been informed that Stuart held private talks with individual members of the complaining group before leaving the island yesterday for New York.

Well-placed sources said while the leadership issue was not yet settled, it was likely that “common sense” would prevail and that the dialogue would continue internally.

Yesterday, one source close to Stuart further indicated that some of the 11, who came under intense public scrutiny following the publication of concerns, were now suffering from “cold feet” and had indicated to Stuart that they were not prepared to press him any further on a meeting to discuss his leadership style.