Newly elected Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Baroness Patricia Scotland is a good fall-back choice for Caricom member states, the majority of which originally proposed and supported the Guyanese-born, Antigua/Barbuda diplomat, Sir Ronald Sanders for the position.
After her election as the first British national, and female, to have held the position as Secretary General of the 53-nation Commonwealth, the Baroness has exercised great diplomacy in her statements.
"Can I just say to Antigua that they too have won because I am Antiguan through my father... and as for African, I am a daughter of Africa too. I am a child of the Commonwealth. There is much to do and I hope all 53 of us will look together at the vision," said Scotland to reporters after her election.
Similarly, she stands on the fact of being a former Attorney General and government minister of the United Kingdom.
Having originally supported the majority Caricom candidate, Sir Ron, Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley and other Caricom prime ministers, when their candidate dropped out of the contest after the first round of voting, quickly shifted their support to the Baroness.
All through the process from nomination to election, Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit was unbending in his promotion and support of Scotland who was born in Dominica.
The Baroness, who was not supported for unstated reasons by British Prime Minister David Cameron, has even become acceptable to the British government no doubt confident that it will now have a friend at court.
However, notwithstanding regional prime ministers now falling in line behind the Secretary General who they share with the British, Caricom failed in respect to one of the foundation pillars of the integration movement; that being the coordination of their foreign policy.
Indeed, facing the world as a united group on international matters has been one of the most successful areas of cooperation in the integration movement.
The candidacy of Sir Ron must also have been negatively affected by an unsubstantiated news report which conveniently appeared on the eve of the election in the British Telegraph. The report sought to involve the Caricom candidate in some alleged corrupt affairs. It seems that negative political campaigning is also a feature outside of the Caribbean.
However, pragmatism in international politics as a means of small states getting benefits in large groupings of powerful states as is the case in the Commonwealth is a reality that has to be lived with.
And in this instance, Caricom seems to have recovered quickly and is now lining up behind Baroness Scotland.
Already, the Baroness has made known her areas of focus over the next four years. That focus includes the pursuit of greater levels of human and women's rights, climate change issues, education and science and technology.
Scotland's predecessor, Kamalesh Sharma, a national of India, when he took office eight years ago, promised to pursue economic matters such as access by small member states to large Commonwealth markets. That did not reach very far over Sharma's the two terms in office.
It is surely a matter that Caricom must rise with the new secretary general when she takes office next year.
The practice of the politics of pragmatism must now occupy the intention of Caricom. Having had to settle for a second best option, member states must come together to work out a common agenda to present to Secretary General Scotland. There is little room for emotion and even less for recrimination in such matters; pragmatism to achieve objectives has far more currency in international affairs.