The race for the leadership of the Democratic Labour Party intensified Wednesday as presidential candidate Reverend Guy Hewitt declared he has widespread support among the party.
He made the claim in an afternoon Zoom meeting hosted by the UK Bajan Hub. The meeting was held in response to the membership’s request to hear Hewitt’s views and opinions on his eligibility for the presidency of the DLP.
In response to suggestions that current president Verla DePeiza had “strong backing” within the party, including support from over 16 Constituency Branch Offices, Hewitt said this was not true.
Reverend Hewitt said: “I am not sure about the data you have but I am aware that there are a number of branches that have not given her a nomination…so I would say that there is mixed thinking on the ground in the DLP on the issue of leadership and her leadership and if you are following what is going on on the ground you would also know that there is not overwhelming support in terms of turnout at these meetings to suggest that there has been a groundswell of support for her candidature,” Hewitt said.
“I want to say that she stepped in at a time when it appeared to some that there was nobody there to fill the void and we have to thank her for that, but now we are on a different playing field, we have to get ourselves election ready and as I have said before the outcome of the St George North by-election suggests that there is still a lot of work to be done, a lot of things that have not been done, and that is where I am stepping up and coming forward to offer what I think is a migrate of competencies in the area of leadership.
“There is in the country and the DLP a desire for the kind of executive leadership that they feel can bring the party towards winning a general election and one of the things that nobody has been willing to say to me or say publicly is that they feel the current president is capable of leading Barbados.”
Reverend Hewitt said that he was disappointed with some of the treatment meted out to him after he declared his intention to challenge DePeiza, pointing to the actions of the Young Democrats and other comments directed at him.
The Anglican cleric said: “For those people who have supported me and are supporting me, I have used the Michelle Obama phrase, ‘When they go low we go high’”. I had hoped that this campaign would not have been personalized, that attacks would have been founded on fact and substance.
“The statement by the Young Democrats was so factually incorrect it was a disappointment to me that people who perceived or purport themselves to be future leaders would show such poor lack of integrity that they would deliberately lie on a letter towards supporting somebody else, but that is what it is.” (RB)
