The Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have established a sub-committee to meet with two of the candidates vying for the post of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

Those candidates are Dominica-born Baroness Patricia Scotland and Senator Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica’s minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade.

Scotland, a former attorney general for England and Wales, is the incumbent in the post, but Jamaica has stirred controversy among CARICOM nations after announcing Johnson Smith’s nomination on April 1.

The revelation that Johnson Smith has been put forward for the post drew the ire of immediate past chairman of CARICOM, Gaston Browne, who called it a “monumental error”.

Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, argued the move threatened to divide the region and said Jamaica had been party to a recent CARICOM consensus endorsing the re-election of Scotland.

In Jamaica’s Parliament on Tuesday (April 5), Prime Minister Andrew Holness said that Scotland’s performance during her first term had left an opening for a challenge.

The comment appeared to be a veiled reference to concerns among a number of Commonwealth nations about Scotland’s stewardship during her first term.

Scotland has been dogged by questions around her conduct of affairs at the Secretariat, including pushing officials out of the organisation, lax spending practices and the hiring of political associates as consultants and advisers.

In his statement in Parliament, Holness acknowledged that Jamaica and other nations had been approached by interests within the Commonwealth about fielding a candidate to challenge the 66-year-old Scotland who, in April 2016, took office for the first of a maximum two four-year terms after being nominated by Dominica.

RENEWAL BID REJECTED

Her bid to have her four-year term automatically renewed was rejected in June 2020, in contrast to the usual convention where an incumbent seeking a second term in office is elected unopposed for his or her second term.

This followed what has been described as a “significant and diverse number of colleagues from across the Commonwealth” raising objection to the proposal, due to allegations of cronyism following an audit of the Commonwealth Secretariat’s procurement practices.

Her first term was however extended due to the postponement of the 2020 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which will now take place next June in Kigali, Rwanda.

In a statement yesterday (April 6), the CARICOM heads noted that, during a meeting held virtually in Caucus earlier in the day, they reaffirmed the obligation of member states to coordinate foreign policy as outlined in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.

The Heads noted the upcoming election at the June 2022 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and “reaffirmed the turn of the Caribbean for a second term in accordance with the tradition of the Commonwealth”.

The CARICOM statement acknowledged that two of its member states had nominated “two eminently qualified candidates for the post of Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and agreed that a Sub-Committee of Heads of Government comprising of The Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Jamaica will meet with the two candidates”.

It was not immediately clear whether the meeting with the candidates would be aimed at coming to an agreement on having one of the candidates step aside or allowing the member states to come to a consensus on which candidate CARICOM foreign policy will coordinate around.

OTHER CANDIDATES

This week, reports surfaced that at least seven CARICOM member states had already decided to support Johnson Smith’s nomination.

Earlier this year, Oceania island country Tuvalu announced its own candidate for the upcoming Commonwealth Secretary-General election, Sir Iakoba Taeia Italeli.

At the same time, Kenya’s Energy Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma, who had also been vying for the job, dropped out of the race in February.