KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – A Vincentian academic has questioned the number of women appointed to prominent positions in the government of Dr.Ralph Gonsalves.
Richard Byron-Cox, who holds a doctorate in public international law, questioned the message being sent to the nation’s men regarding their prospects despite their qualifications.
Byron-Cox, also head of the Capacity Development and Innovations Office at the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, recently raised the issue on the radio.
“I’m going to say something which will disturb all of you now. And you could stop me,” he said in a call to WE FM’s Issue at Hand.
“Now when you look, Ralph Gonsalves, he boasts, ‘Oh, you know, 80% of our diplomatic forces are women.’ All of his recent appointments are women except one or two men. What is he saying to our young men? You have no say, regardless of how much you’re trained and educated. Is that what he’s saying?” Byron-Cox said.
The international public servant professed his love for Gonsalves, referring to him as “Comrade,” as the prime minister is popularly known.
“I know I make people uncomfortable. I know that. Listen to me. I love Comrade. I love Comrade as if he is my blood. That’s how I love comrade. But I’m an intelligent man. And Comrade himself said in his speech at the opening of this new institute, the Political and Governance Institute, he said, ‘You know what? I’m afraid of ignorance.”
“That was a wonderful statement,” Byron-Cox further stated, adding that he used to bash ignorance and does not like it, “but understand that I’m ignorant of many things.”
Byron-Cox, who said he has lectured at over 100 top universities in the world, said, “behavior of the type exhibited by the government “discourages our young men.”
Asked to elaborate, Byron-Cox said, “The behavior where we have a situation in our country now where …a majority of the appointments being made by our prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, is of one gender.
“And we wonder, I wonder, I Richard, wonder what it means for young men? How does that encourage them? In what way, shape or form?”
Byron-Cox said the ground on which he based the argument might need to be revised.
“I have said before. I’m not God, and I’m not Socrates. So, I’m not claiming that I’m correct. I’m claiming that there needs to be a look into this and a discussion about it.”
Responding to Byron-Cox, program co-host Joel Providence, an honorary consul and retired executive, noted that there was an assumption that Gonsalves, rather than the Cabinet, was making the appointments.
“But could it be, from his perspective, a rebalancing act, where, for example, the ministerial realm is dominated by men and those who represent the country outside, and if we say, well, let’s have a balance between male and female,” Providence said.
He said he was not saying that was the case, adding that the prime minister and his Cabinet “may have another purpose, motive, mission behind that.
“But maybe some people believe there needs to be rebalancing, but 80% seems high. And the question is where are the men and that, as we were talking before, about crime and what is happening. Yes, we need to focus on what, in some instances, seems to be a last group of people,” Providence said.
He said that is why he had raised the question of fatherhood in the previous week’s program, saying it needs to be discussed in greater detail.
“But just maybe it’s a question of rebalancing taken to a particular level,” Providence further said of the appointments.
Byron-Cox responded:
“I think you will agree with me that if you have a piece of steel, and you bend it one way, and to correct it, instead of pounding out that bend, you bend it another way, all you have is two bends, not a straight piece of steel. All you have is two bends.”
Byron-Cox had begun his contribution to the program by noting that the primary host, Cecil Ryan, had said the program started with serious issues the nation needed to tackle.
“The fundamental question I have, Mr. Ryan and your panel, is this: Are we truly prepared for open discussion on the serious issues.”
He noted that Ryan had said at the beginning of the program that listeners might not agree with him, but they must be prepared to listen to each other.
“And in all honesty, I’ve looked at the space, the public space for discussion in our country, and you either have to hold a line going one way or the other, you carry a party line one way or the other, or you’re not heard,” Byron-Cox said.
“Even when I call into your program, and I mention things which are not necessarily in praise of the government, I could feel the uncomfortableness of the program, I can feel that I’m raising things which you would prefer that I don’t speak about,” Byron-Cox said.
Commenting on the issue, Gonsalves, in a call to the program, noted that in 2020, his government appointed Keisal Peters as a senator and minister of foreign affairs. At that time, Ashell Morgan was appointed senator and deputy speaker of the House of Assembly.
He noted that this year, the government appointed two new senators, Benarva Browne and Shackell Bobb, both of whom were assigned executive positions.
Gonsalves agreed that there is a need for a balance in the Parliament, adding that among the proposed changes rejected in the referendum was to see if one-third of the candidates could be women.
He noted that no women offered to the electorate by political parties in the 2020 general elections were elected to Parliament.
The prime minister pointed out that when his government was elected to office in 2001, two women, Girlyn Miguel, and Rene Baptiste, were elected parliamentary representatives, and his administration appointed Judith Jones-Morgan as attorney general and president of the ULP’s Women’s Arm, Juliet George, as a senator.
Gonsalves said this is the first time since then that there are four female MPs on the government side.
“Which four out of 14, it is 28.5%,” he said, adding that on the opposition side, there is one woman among the eight MPs or 12.5%.
“And therefore, on average, 22.5% of those who sit other than the speaker. Of course, when you add the speaker, the percentage goes up. So that’s what we have done. And what is very consistent in all the recent appointments is not so much the gender or the sex of the person. The constant among all the appointments is youth,” Gonsalves said.
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