Three successive election clean sweeps must not breed complacency and arrogance within the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), former union leader Sir Roy Trotman and Seventh-day Adventist pastor Shane Butcher have warned, urging members to put public service ahead of the comforts of political success.
Trotman, the former Barbados Workers’ Union general secretary, delivered the main address at the worship service that closed the party’s 87th annual conference at St George Secondary School on Sunday, following a sermon by Butcher.
Addressing the theme, Building Beyond the Victory, Trotman said electoral success brought greater responsibility, particularly for a party that had won all 30 seats in three consecutive general elections.
“Victory at the polls is not an end in itself,” he said.
Trotman cautioned delegates against allowing success to breed complacency.
“I wish to warn you to avoid the sin of complacency. This falls on us without noise and without fanfare. Nobody warns you it is coming.”
He warned that complacency could lead to arrogance and false pride, resulting in disrespect for others and an inflated sense of one’s own worth.
Trotman urged members to measure their contribution by their service to the party and the wider community rather than the recognition they received.
He also said the party’s ambitions should extend beyond immediate benefits for supporters, drawing a distinction between winning elections and sharing the benefits of victory with citizens.
“It is one thing to win; it is something else to share.”
Pastor Butcher, preaching on the biblical narrative of Israel’s victory at Jericho and its subsequent defeat at the smaller city of Ai, challenged the congregation to consider how success could become a source of future failure.
He asked: “How do we ensure that the victory we celebrate today does not become the reason we fail tomorrow?”
The pastor outlined three lessons: remembering history, resisting the intoxication of victory and adapting approaches for the future.
On the importance of history, Butcher quoted Marcus Garvey’s warning that “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots”.
Remembering the past meant preserving what was good, he said, acknowledging what was wrong and using those lessons to build a better future.
“We must remember that public leadership is not merely about holding office,” he said. “It is about serving people.”
Butcher warned that success could weaken the discipline that had helped individuals and the party achieve it.
“Complacency does not always look like laziness. Sometimes it looks like comfort. Sometimes it sounds like we have done enough.”
He said leaders must remain willing to listen to criticism and examine their shortcomings, even when they enjoyed public support: “We cannot become so impressed by our accomplishments that we stop examining our shortcomings. We cannot allow applause to make us deaf to constructive criticism.”
Winning an election, receiving an award, or completing a successful programme did not mean there was nothing left to learn, Butcher suggested: “Success is not a licence to stop improving.”
Butcher also urged leaders to distinguish between the values they should preserve and the methods they might need to change.
“Leaders must distinguish between the principles they should never abandon and the methods that they may sometimes need to change,” he said, citing integrity, justice, fairness, compassion and service as principles worth preserving.
Questioning the familiar advice to leave alone what was not broken, he asked: “Just because it ain’t broke, does that mean it can’t be improved?”
He argued that programmes, systems and policies could still benefit from improvement even when they were functioning, particularly as people’s needs changed.
The Adventist cleric suggested that citizens, political leaders, and the church were responsible for building beyond victory. He called on the church to speak truth, care for vulnerable people and remind leaders that public office carried a duty to serve.
He warned that no political victory should place a leader or organisation beyond criticism, accountability or the need to improve.
“May we never become so proud of our Jericho that we underestimate the challenges ahead,” he said. “May we never become so comfortable with yesterday’s achievements that we neglect tomorrow’s opportunities, and may we never become so attached to the way things have always been that we lose the courage to do what we must do differently.”
(LG)
