Focus on issues, PM tells by-election opponents

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has accused members of opposing parties in the upcoming St George North by-election of engaging in distractions, rather than focusing on important issues, during the ongoing campaign.

Speaking at a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) mass meeting in support of candidate Senator Toni Moore on Sunday, she said the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and other smaller opposition groups were focusing on Moore’s background and the short election season, rather than the matters that are pertinent to the people of St George North.

After receiving pushback from these groups about the political debates to be televised on the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ahead of the vote, Mottley questioned whether the parties were really ready for the work usually done in Parliament.

“On Thursday night in Newbury, the conversation I had with you was what this election is really about. As I left there, and I continue to hear people speak over the course of the last few days, I hear them talk about this debate, finding every reason why people should not participate in a debate.

“You heard me tell you at Newbury last Thursday night, ‘what are you voting for on November 11?’. You are voting to elect a representative in the House of Assembly. And what is it you do in the House of Assembly? You debate and you vote. So that if you cannot represent the people, if you can’t find the words to represent the people, what are you really talking about? What is it that they do not want to debate?” she told those gathered in Lower Estate, St George.

The Prime Minister noted that in the last general election, the DLP had no issues with debating and speaking their minds, but now it was a problem for them.

“All of a sudden, they are not interested in talking, they are not interested in debating. You have to ask yourselves whether it is because you know that you got more representation coming from the Barbados Labour Party, as opposed to people who now want to wrap up their weaknesses and call it ‘unorthodox’ campaigning. Now I never heard more nonsense in my life,” Mottley chided. (SB)