3rd Party Dreamers

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It is an old story in Caribbean politics. Ever so often we hear that “given the disillusionment” with the two dominant parties, a new group (often hidden) has “formed a new party”. Sometimes, the party never appears, or when it does contest an election, it is routed. Despite this, the expressed dream of “we need a third party” never disappears, and true to form, Barbados in the past week was greeted with news of a third party.

What then are the conditions which facilitate the emergence and success of third parties?

A third party does not emerge merely because a small committed group wishes one into existence. A new party (as distinct from a third party) is the leading tip of a qualitative shift in the underlying political economy of a country, upon which rises new social and economic forces. These forces are captured and honed politically in a new party.

For example, John Compton’s United Workers Party in St. Lucia emerged in 1964, in the context of a new political economy of banana-production, which eclipsed the old sugar economy upon which the St. Lucia Labour party (founded in the context of universal suffrage) had emerged. Similarly, in the 1970s-Caribbean a number of new parties were founded in the context of a global socialist movement, through which anti-colonial left wing parties were consolidating themselves throughout the post-colonial world. Significantly, the 1980s brought to an end the context favourable to such parties.

In a few instances, third parties can emerge around strong personalities who capitalise on existing intra and inter-party weaknesses. Some notable Caribbean cases include James Mitchel in St. Vincent, Keith Mitchel in Grenada and Eugenia Charles of Dominica. Even is such cases, new political-economy shifts can be identified, as in the case of Keith Mitchell’s New National Party, which emerged in the context of the context of the collapse of Grenada’s socialism. Significantly, these parties, as in Eugenia Charles’s Dominica Freedom Party, are unable to outlive their founders.

Nevertheless, it is the “opportunism” of the cases cited above which provides the motivation for the Caribbean third party dreamers, as in the most recent Barbadian case. It was comical to see the leaders of the third party “inviting” the participation of so-called prominent citizens, of no known political talent, as a solution to our present crisis. One waits in vain to hear the deeper philosophical rationale for the new party. All one hears is a vague reference to “tweedle-dee and tweddle-dum” as if tweedle-three is an automatic alternative.

Unless there is a shift in the underlying political economy, or our constitutions allow for proportional representative electoral systems, the third party aspiration will remain a pipe-dream.

It is possible however, that in the present Barbadian case, the aim is not so much to present an alternative, but to frustrate others.

CNIOH/AO