DLP leader says BLP breached electoral rules

Leader of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Verla De Peiza has accused the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) of breaching the Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) regulations by having a “political broadcast” on the eve of Wednesday’s St George North by-election.

And she says the ruling party owes the Treasury $5 000 for the infraction.

Addressing a political meeting at Sheffield Pasture, Lower Estate, St George on Tuesday night, just hours after a team of officials led by Prime Minister Mia Mottley visited the Lower Estate Quarry which has turned into a dump, De Peiza charged that the BLP leader’s speech on the occasion was in breach of the regulations that state “no political broadcast may be made on polling day or the day preceding polling day”.

Mottley, accompanied by a large delegation, toured the dump 24 hours after DLP candidate Floyd Reifer threatened to take legal action on behalf of Lower Estate residents who have been affected by the dump for several years.

De Peiza charged that it took Reifer reaching his breaking point and announcing the need to go to court to settle the matter to “wake the real sleeping giant in Barbados and get the Attorney General to talk”.

The DLP leader said when pressure was put on the Prime Minister about the hastily called media event on Tuesday, it was declared that the event was not a press conference but a political broadcast.

“He [Reifer] had their feathers so ruffled that all sorts of madness happen today. Everybody received a broadcast saying this is a press conference and a whole entourage, a whole busload, [went] down in the dump. One master class of a political speech went on by the dump and when journalists and people knowing better than they do what the law says start to complain, then we heard ‘oh no, no, no, this is a political broadcast’,” De Peiza said.

Although acknowledging that the Representation of the People (General Election) (Allocation of Broadcasting Time) Regulations relate to a general election, the political leader read out the clauses of the document, which were displayed on a screen, to argue that Prime Minister Mottley had run afoul of the law.

“If that was a political broadcast, the Barbados Labour Party owes some money to the Treasury of Barbados for breaching the regulations. In the regulations, first thing it does it describe what kind of elections . . . . and when you check the definition it speaks about general elections. Are we in a general election? What political broadcast yuh talking bout?

“And even if it were a political broadcast you cannot have a political broadcast on the day before polling. . . . She [Mottley] owes $5 000 to the Treasury if she had a political broadcast today [Tuesday] on the day before polling day,” De Peiza, an attorney-at-law, insisted, adding that it was not the first time the DLP had reason to challenge the Government on legal matters.