Branville McCartney’s Folly
by Simon
Former junior minister Branville McCartney’s decision to leave Prime Minister Ingraham’s cabinet under three years is still unfathomable to many Bahamians. Just as his statements since his return to the backbench have proven baffling and contradictory, his stated reasons for leaving remain inexplicable. He claims not to have left over a matter of policy.
In parliamentary systems such as ours, cabinet experience is not a prerequisite for serving as prime minister. Still, it provides one of the best training cum proving grounds for the office. Cabinet service is where a potential chief executive is observed and graded by multiple audiences, including the public at large.
In significant ways, ministers are more closely vetted by those who see them up- close, including civil servants and various national stakeholders. They are sized-up by their party faithful and opposition parties. There is relentless media scrutiny. Yet, there is a smaller though no less critical audience a future prime minister has to impress.
Cabinet is where the nation’s business is prioritized, and where fateful decisions are made affecting the country for generations. Only those who have sat in cabinet truly understand the burdens, the capacity to do so much good for so many, as well as the risk of doing great harm or not doing enough.
People with healthy egos and considerable ambition tend to sit in the cabinet, collaborating and competing. As they wrestle with endless decisions on a dizzying array of issues, they are constantly taking each other’s measure.
PERSPECTIVE
They assess each other as equals and identify who among them may be the best to serve as the first among equals or prime minister. They have a unique perspective. It is a perspective which considers many of the characteristics and skills needed in a potential prime minister at a particular stage in a country’s history.
Though the mild-mannered Clement Attlee did not possess the sizzling charisma of Winston Churchill, he was Labour’s choice to fight the 1945 British general election against the roaring lion who had just triumphantly led the United Kingdom through World War II.
Churchill and his Conservatives lost in a landslide to Atlee’s Labour Party which ushered in the most sweeping social and welfare reforms in British history, including the National Health Service.
Mr. Attlee obviously had to win public support. But before that he had to win the confidence of his party, parliamentary and cabinet colleagues, who were peers of great ambition, strong character and ability.
He had to be tested in terms of his judgement and ability to govern, steadiness under pressure and resilience, and what today we call multiple intelligences, including those of style and substance.
In the political realm, the former refers to one’s political and personal touch, the latter to intellectual capacity. That intellectual capacity includes an ability to appreciate the complexities of various issues, curiosity and a willingness to grow.
Having left the cabinet, the Bamboo Town MP seems more interested in making the case for himself as a future prime minister in the press. In so doing, he has removed himself from one of his toughest audiences as well as one of the best training grounds for prime minister.
There are newcomers who do not follow the traditional path to the ultimate political prize, though these tend to be the exception. And such exception demands exceptional politicians.
Barack Obama and David Cameron are young leaders who, despite relatively few years at the highest levels of national politics, proved exceptional enough to respectively become US President and British Prime Minister in record time.
In addition to impressing media, business and opinion leaders, both won over their political peers and party members and officials. Is Mr. McCartney casting himself in the likes of Messrs. Obama and Cameron? If so, he is not doing terribly well.
The country and his former cabinet colleagues know that he is ambitious. But that ambition does not appear to be tied to great purpose or ability. He has not offered the predicate for why he should be the nation’s chief executive.
In public statements and parliamentary interventions, Mr. McCartney has proven intellectually underwhelming and often glib, seemingly more comfortable with clichés and off the cuff remarks than substantive ideas or vision. Only his cabinet colleagues know how much -- or little -- he offered around the table.
COLLECTIVE
His contention that he left because of being underutilized and insufficiently challenged seems odd. Immigration is a substantial brief with considerable challenges. The rookie politician also had an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate his judgement on the numerous issues which confronted the cabinet as a part of the principle of collective responsibility.
Instead of hunkering down and wrestling with the not so sexy issues and nuts and bolts of government, Mr. McCartney abruptly left. It was an unusual decision given the enormous opportunity and privilege.
Some feel that Mr. McCartney has charisma or style, making him popular with various supporters. But popularity or friends on Facebook is not synonymous with real support. He has also been described by some as being adept at public relations.
A facility with staging events and working the press is not the same as having a compelling message that is considered and serious. In party councils and parliamentary meetings, Mr. McCartney’s colleagues are underwhelmed.
His interventions in the House are rambling, his debating skills are not the strongest and his policy analysis is typically weak. On various immigration matters he often seemed to play to the gallery and nativist instincts.
Significant numbers of illegal migrants have been repatriated to their countries before and after Mr. McCartney’s time at Immigration. Further, he did not stay long enough to institute many of the reforms needed in immigration policy, including modernizing the Department of Immigration.
Mr. McCartney decided to leave cabinet at a moment of considerable historical significance. Instead of staying to help make the many momentous decisions during some of the more difficult days of the recent global financial crisis and now a tentative recovery, he left his post.
He was not in the mix when many of the tough calls were made. He stayed on the margins and in the press mostly noting what his former colleagues had done wrong and at times suggesting what he would have done.
Some observers suggest that Mr. McCartney is stylizing himself after Hubert Ingraham, who made his mark by leaving Sir Lynden Pindling’s cabinet and then retiring his former leader. The historic and character parallels between Mr. Ingraham and Mr. McCartney are weak, with the latter lacking the former’s prodigious intellectual and political skills, not to mention the issue of motive in each case.
TUTORIAL
To better understand Mr. Ingraham’s skills and hone his own, Mr. McCartney would have been wiser had he stayed in his cabinet to learn up-close from the successful prime minister he wishes to succeed. From Hubert Ingraham he would have enjoyed an unparalleled tutorial in political and executive leadership.
Mr. Ingraham knows that he must prepare for the future leadership of his party and the country after he leaves office. Towards this end, he has publicly noted that he is providing opportunities for a new generation of leaders. One of those was Branville McCartney, who appears to believe that he is ready to be prime minister now.
Many politicians have been felled or had their plans disrupted because of overreach. As he proceeds, Mr. McCartney may want to seek the wise counsel of the Grecian tragedies as the counsel he is keeping is failing him -- miserably.
He might wish to recall the fate of Icarus, who tumbled from great heights to the ground because of unbridled ego and hubris. In addition to the Greeks, Mr. McCartney may wish to immerse himself in the workings of cabinet government.
He may come to better appreciate that in his desire to become first among equals in the cabinet, he needs to demonstrate that he is truly a team player and a peer committed to collective responsibility instead of overweening personal ambition.
Unlike Clement Atlee, Barack Obama, David Cameron and Hubert Ingraham, Mr. McCartney has not come near to convincing his peers and political colleagues that he has the gravitas needed to be prime minister.
In his march of folly, he may wish to remember that he is seeking to become the Bahamian prime minister in a system of collective responsibility, not president of a system such as that of the United States. Yet even in the latter system, one has to win the support of political colleagues, something Mr. McCartney has utterly failed to do.
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