24/09/2022
MOVING HAND OR MASTERMIND BEHIND SHYNE’S SHENANIGANS?
During the 1993-1998 Manuel Esquivel UDP Administration, Dean Barrow, who was Deputy PM, earned the nickname, ‘Master of Games’. And those of us within and outside the UDP who have studied him carefully over the years, will readily admit he has more than lived up to the reputation.
Of late, the nominally retired politician has been at pains to convince the world he has no hand in his son’s dictatorial rule over the UDP, but those of us who know him well, know better. In fact, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that the Shyne experiment is one that was concocted in his father’s lab and is in fact a not-so-camouflaged attempt at a fourth Dean Barrow term as Prime Minister.
At the March 2022 Special UDP Leadership Convention, when questioned by the media about his involvement, the accomplished ‘Master of Games’, revealingly responded, “I was three-time Prime Minister. Doesn’t that entitle me to call in whatever chips I may have in support of my son?”
We might never know the exact nature of those "chips", but they certainly enabled Shyne to secure the UDP leadership by a razor thin margin of 2 votes. Being so heavily invested in his son’s UDP leadership, one must assume Barrow would go to great lengths to protect his investment. And, he certainly has.
Three months later, that investment clearly being in deep trouble, the elder Barrow, in a staged interview with LOVE FM, remarked, “My heart grieves for my son, for my party, but most of all for my country.” We would never accuse the former Prime Minister of being unpatriotic, but our instinct tells us the grief he spoke of was expressed in descending order of priority.
Let’s fast-forward to this past Thursday, when the elder Barrow resurfaced in yet another exclusive interview with LOVE FM, no doubt as staged as the previous, excerpts from which were first aired on the station’s midday radio newscast.
The portion that immediately jumped out at me was the former PM’s response to a question about his views on the possible expulsion of Honorable Patrick Faber from the Party for refusing to remove from his page material critical of Shyne as UDP Leader. The elder Barrow, in his typical, artful fashion, claimed he knew nothing of such a possibility, but went on to remark, “Such a thing would be unfortunate. It may be necessary…, (but) even if it is necessary, it would still be unfortunate.”
Much too familiar with the coded language of the veteran ‘Master of Games’, I promptly alerted colleagues within my close circle of party loyalists, cautioning them that some new and outrageous action against Honorable Patrick Faber was certainly in the making and imminent. So said, so done. By nightfall, a letter had surfaced indicating Shyne and his executive were purporting to deny Honorable Patrick Faber the right to seek re-election as UDP Collet Representative in the next general election.
Do we need any further evidence that the elder Barrow, the 'Master of Games' himself, has been the moving hand behind Shyne’s hostile takeover and dictatorial rule over the UDP? I think not. In fact, I will venture to say, he is not only the moving hand, but the mastermind behind it all. But if he wishes to prove us wrong, the elder Barrow should quit “grieving” for his son and start denouncing his vindictive actions and dictatorial style of leadership.
We will wait, but certainly won’t hold our breath, for fear of dying from asphyxia.
By Delroy Cuthkelvin
