Opposition Leader Bishop Joseph Atherley says he is appalled by the manner in which the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is running its campaign for next month’s by-election in St George North.
The president of the People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) said that despite the BLP having controlled the seat for an extended period of time, he was disappointed that weeks before the November 11 vote, all sorts of promises were being made by the party to constituents.
At a BLP political meeting last Sunday, Member of Parliament for St George South Dwight Sutherland, who is also Minister of Community Empowerment, Sports and Youth, promised residents that a new pavilion and hard courts would be built in Glebe Land if their candidate Toni Moore was successful.
Atherley questioned why such projects could not have been done before.
“Why is it that the BLP continues to perpetuate this style of representation, in that it is only now that on the eve of a by-election in St George that you are seeing a sudden rush to have a space in Flat Rock greened, a sudden rush to fix roads in certain parts of the adjoining constituencies of St George North and St George South, and you’re turning the sod to start a housing project?
“Seriously, I am disappointed that we still want to perpetuate that kind of politics. Why couldn’t some of these things have been done before? And I really am making a call for our candidate David Waldron, who is a hometown, homegrown, rooted in the soil St George man, and I am challenging all and any of the candidates to make a public statement as to what they have done in the St George constituency or St George North constituency up until now, not what they plan to do,” Atherley told Barbados TODAY.
He said the PdP’s campaigning had been going well thus far and Walrond was being well received by residents in St George North.
“The feedback has been very good wherever we’ve gone. The man is well known because he has been around St George from the time he was a young fella.
“He and his brother have traded in fruits and vegetables, he has taught St George students, he was head of the District Emergency Organisation, he worked as well with the Constituency Council and moved a lot of projects forward…. He has served St George North at a different level and the feedback thus far has been extremely good,” Atherley noted. (RB)
