'This is not the time for kids in the HoA' – Skelton Cline
He said during his programme on ZBVI 780 AM on March 1, 2022, that it was not the time for children in the House of Assembly (HoA).
“Some of the people I see sticking up their heads wanting to go run for elected office, I’m not mad at you, please understand me. I am making a critique, I am not making a judgement or condemnation,” he stated.
The clergyman added that some of the people he sees and hears are offering themselves for political office, "the only way I am going to put it is this: the state of affairs of this country and the state of affairs of the world in which we live and for anyone of us who have any kind of discernment, this is not the time for kids.”
So far only three persons have publicly expressed their intentions for running for political office in the upcoming general elections. They are Lesmore Smith and Shaina M. Smith-Archer of Progressive Virgin Islands Movement (PVIM) and Bevin S. George, who has been associated with the National Democratic Party (NDP).
There are; however, reports of other persons having an interest in running for office.
Time for maturity in HoA
Emphasising that this is not the time "for a bunch of children" to be running around in the House of Assembly," Mr Skelton-Cline stated, adding that this is the time for persons with the strength of character, intellectual prowess and emotional maturity.
"This is the time for thoughtful, provocative, interrogating, thinking and deliberation. This is the time for persons who are going to have the will to make the kinds of weighted decisions that is so pregnant, that is so critical to the crossroads of which we sit in this world and where we are as an emerging and maturing democracy,” he remarked.
Skelton Cline pointed out that he was already disgusted by some of the kindergarten and elementary politicising and politicking of things, and his spirit has developed a disdain for it.
In the meantime, he called on the electorate to “choose very wisely” in the General Election constitutionally due in 2023.
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15 Responses to “'This is not the time for kids in the HoA' – Skelton Cline”
This is the time for all of that, yes, but also... for decisive action.
All the thinking and deliberation and stuffing faces with pastries in meeting after meeting and getting fat does NOTHING without action.
This is the time for seasoned leaders to have mentored juniors that they can pass the baton to, gracefully.
This is the time for older heads to make way for younger ones that can actually maneuver in the twenty-first century with all the technology that entails, instead of staying stuck in a mode that is 20 years behind because "tradition" (really, comfort, familiarity and fear)
This is the time of Jacinda Ardern, Leo Varadkar, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and countless other 'young' national leaders... all under 50 years of age and born in a generation that knows how to straddle the analogue-digital transition without fear to take their countries forward.
This is above all the time for those who claim not to be making a condemnation or judgment, yet in the same breath will equate maturity with age and throw out words like 'elementary', 'childish', 'kids' and 'kindergarten', effectively judging someone to be immature on the basis of age... to practise what they are preaching about discernment and discern when to be SILENT.
Because there is something inherently wrong with older heads that REFUSE to give way, just as people would find it odd for a grown man to still be breastfeeding. Umbilical cords need to be cut, succession planning needs to happen, because the essence of life is CHANGE. That change and progress happens with new blood, new ideas and people who understand the technological age; not with minds mired in tradition and unable to flex because their joints will not allow.
Finally, please consider perspective in your discernment; just as everything looks like a nail to a hammer, consider that those who seem 'young' to you (despite having been in Youth Parliament and other activities which one must question the purpose of if it isn't to prepare future leaders after all...), may seem that way because you yourself are... not young.