Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley hands over the chairmanship of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) to St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves at a special meeting tomorrow via video conference. The only woman on the Caricom quasi cabinet, as she is the lone Caribbean woman leading a government at this time, she has served the community with grit and distinction during what has been a trying period given the adjustments that had to be made owing to the novel coronavirus, which is still an issue for many Caricom states, and Guyana’s controversial elections, which remains unsettled. As a head of government, she will no doubt continue to speak with her colleagues on both topics, but she may never be able to put the disturbing events of the past few months behind her and in particular the most recent in which she was vilified, and basically told to mind her own business when her sought opinion was perhaps not what was expected.
In March, following an impasse in the elections process, Ms Mottley led a team of Caricom heads on a two-day visit to Guyana. The prime ministers accompanying her were Dr Gonsalves, Dr Keith Mitchell of Grenada, Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica, and Dr Keith Rowley of Trinidad and Tobago. The team met with the government and opposition, after which Ms Mottley made a statement. Part of that statement said, “… Guyana is a founding member of Caricom, and it is against that background that we made it clear that as a community of sovereign nations that we cannot be involved with the internal process, but we are family and family do not stand by and watch others in the family suffer without making themselves available to aid the process. We have tried to do that, but we are also conscious that we are [only] successful [if] the parties involved want it…”
It was following this visit that President David Granger requested a high-level Caricom team to supervise a recount of ballots and this was also agreed to by the opposition. But the recount did not begin then as it was challenged in court, by Ulita Moore, a member of Mr Granger’s APNU, and an injunction preventing the process was granted. The Caricom team that had arrived as requested, was forced to leave. Ms Mottley had spoken up on this saying, “It is clear that there are forces that do not want to see the votes recounted for whatever reason. Any government which is sworn in without a credible and fully transparent vote count process would lack legitimacy.”
The recount was subsequently completed, but as has been documented in the media ad nauseam, the process is yet to end. The current stalemate involves some 115,000 votes that have been discarded as invalid and there is court action over a related Court of Appeal decision. Prior to this, however, Dr Gonsalves had said during a radio programme in his country, “We expect the Caricom observer mission to deliver its report and we expect that what is the recount would be honoured and the Guyana Elections Commission will honour that recount and declare the winner in accordance with this recount.” Whoever wanted to challenge those results, he added, should do so in court.
Dr Gonsalves was lambasted for his comments by among others, APNU+AFC official Joseph Harmon.
Following this, the APNU+AFC, via Mr Harmon, called on Ms Mottley as Caricom chair to not allow Dr Gonsalves’s statement to stand and to make her position clear on the issue. Ms Mottley later did so, stating inter alia, “… we must ask – on what grounds and by what form of executive fiat does the Chief Elections Officer determine that he should invalidate 1 vote, far less over 115 000 votes when the votes were already certified as valid by officers of the Guyana Elections Commission in the presence of the political parties…
“The community holds the strong view that no voter must be disenfranchised in determining the credibility of this or any election. It is this commitment to a fair and transparent political process that led us to send 2 electoral observation missions – one for the elections and one for the recount…” Her comments were not well received.
Ms Mottley was accused of interfering, and subjected to personal and political attacks, mostly on social media, by members and supporters of the APNU+AFC. And while Mr Granger has said that he will not criticise Ms Mottley or any Caricom head, he has also not condemned the attacks on her. This is the same Ms Mottley who was conferred with the Order of Roraima by Mr Granger in February this year, during which he extolled, “She combines her almost 30 years of political activism with her personal enthusiasm and her country’s legendary leadership in regional integration. We applaud Prime Minister Mottley’s leadership, stewardship, and partnership with Caribbean states. We commend her, on her assumption of the office of Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community, for her long-established commitment to Caribbean integration.”
Of course, Ms Mottley has not lost the core qualities she was lauded for in February, she just did not toe the line. But as a politician, she is no doubt well acquainted with all manner of backstabbers and would have developed the thick skin needed to repel them.
