Build­ing on a sto­ry by Gail Alexan­der in the Guardian last Tues­day about the re-elec­tion of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Car­la Bar­nett by Cari­com un­der the head­ing “Bar­nett still has ma­jor­i­ty sup­port”, it is very sig­nif­i­cant that for the first time in its his­to­ry, Cari­com at­tempt­ed to re-elect its Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al (SG) by ma­jor­i­ty vote in­stead of its usu­al una­nim­i­ty among all mem­ber coun­tries for ap­point­ments and re-ap­point­ments.

Trinidad and To­ba­go was dis­in­vit­ed from the last Cari­com Re­treat in Nevis, while An­tigua and Bar­bu­da and The Ba­hamas were al­so ab­sent. Yet the SG mat­ter came up as an ad hoc item with the Heads of three coun­tries ab­sent. All Cari­com For­eign Min­is­ters were in­vit­ed to an­oth­er meet­ing in St Kitts on the same day that the Heads of Gov­ern­ment were in re­treat in Nevis. It is dis­turb­ing that the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at have been caught is­su­ing a dis­in­vi­ta­tion to Min­is­ter Sean Sobers from the Nevis Re­treat while ped­dling a scan­dalous sto­ry that he com­plained of sea sick­ness as their pub­lic jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for ex­clud­ing him from that meet­ing. Cari­com can­not even get its own sto­ry straight, as it is con­tra­dict­ed by its own pub­lic dis­in­vi­ta­tion and the of­fi­cial note from the Chef de Cab­i­net of Cari­com to that ef­fect.

A win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed it­self to reap­point the SG at the Re­treat, with three coun­tries ab­sent. They broke their own rich tra­di­tion of unan­i­mous re-ap­point­ment of past SGs. That ap­par­ent­ly did not mat­ter to Chair­man Drew.

The Orig­i­nal Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas 1973 spec­i­fied that “the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al shall be ap­point­ed by the Con­fer­ence (on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Coun­cil) for a term not ex­ceed­ing 5 years and may be reap­point­ed by the Con­fer­ence”.

The first SG ap­point­ed un­der the Orig­i­nal Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas af­ter 1973 was Al­is­ter McIn­tyre, who suc­ceed­ed William De­mas in 1974 (the tran­si­tion SG of the Con­fer­ence of Com­mon­wealth Caribbean Coun­tries from 1969) un­der an Agen­da item en­ti­tled “Ap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al” for which there was no pa­per. This was done by the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment af­ter a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Com­mon Mar­ket Coun­cil. McIn­tryre as­sumed du­ties on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1974.

Dr Kurleigh King was unan­i­mous­ly ap­point­ed by round robin of the Heads of Gov­ern­ment on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Com­mon Mar­ket Coun­cil for the pe­ri­od 1979-83.

For the pe­ri­od 1983-1992, Rod­er­ick Rain­ford was ap­point­ed af­ter the Com­mon Mar­ket Coun­cil re­ceived nom­i­na­tions un­der the head­ing “Nom­i­na­tions for the Post of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al”. The Coun­cil agreed to rec­om­mend Rain­ford to the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment and he was unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved. In 1988, the reap­point­ment of Rain­ford came up un­der “Any Oth­er Busi­ness” and he was unan­i­mous­ly ap­point­ed to a term of “three to five years with ef­fect from Sep­tem­ber 21, 1988.”

By 1991, a more rig­or­ous ap­proach was es­tab­lished by the Heads Con­fer­ence when a Search Com­mit­tee was formed to find a new Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al. The Com­mit­tee rec­om­mend­ed Dr Ed­win Car­ring­ton to suc­ceed Rain­ford. At its in­ter-ses­sion­al meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary 1992, un­der a spe­cif­ic agen­da item for con­sid­er­a­tion of the Com­mit­tee’s Re­port, there was a unan­i­mous de­ci­sion to ap­point Car­ring­ton as SG. The reap­point­ment of Car­ring­ton in lat­er years was first con­sid­ered un­der “Mat­ters Re­lat­ed to the Sec­re­tari­at” in 1996 and he was there­after unan­i­mous­ly re-ap­point­ed on suc­ces­sive oc­ca­sions up to 2010.

Loli­ta Ap­ple­whaite, Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, act­ed as SG dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2010-2011 while a Search Com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed to find a new SG. Af­ter some hic­cups with that process, the Heads were able to unan­i­mous­ly ap­prove SG Ir­win La Roque by Ju­ly 2011. He was unan­i­mous­ly reap­point­ed af­ter a Re­vised Agen­da item en­ti­tled “Reap­point­ment of the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al” was con­sid­ered at the In­ter-Ses­sion­al meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2016 and ap­point­ed up to 2021.

A Call for Can­di­dates for Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al was is­sued fol­low­ing the In­ter-Ses­sion­al meet­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2021. The Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil re­ceived the nom­i­na­tions, in­ter­viewed the can­di­dates and sub­se­quent­ly made a rec­om­men­da­tion to the Con­fer­ence of Heads for the ap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett with ef­fect from Au­gust 2021.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cari­com “Note on the Ap­point­ment and Reap­point­ment of the Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Over the Years”, it is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly stat­ed that the reap­point­ment “of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Bar­nett was not on the Agen­da of the Fifti­eth Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence, Feb­ru­ary 2026. The Chair­man an­nounced on 25 March 2026, the de­ci­sion of the Con­fer­ence tak­en at the Fifti­eth Meet­ing to Reap­point Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Bar­nett.”

No Agen­da item, three coun­tries ab­sent, and yet there was an an­nounce­ment by Chair­man Dr Ter­rance Drew that Bar­nett was reap­point­ed. The ap­point­ments and re-ap­point­ments of SGs of Cari­com have al­ways been based on the una­nim­i­ty of all Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment. They poi­soned their chal­ice and they are drink­ing from it. Thank­ful­ly, we will not.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.