With just over a week before general elections, Prime Minister Mia Mottley believes the choice is clear for Barbadians when they go to cast ballots – to re-elect a government with a proven track record of progress and sound leadership.
Speaking at the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Mega Manifesto Meeting on Sunday where she identified several improvements made by her administration since taking office in 2018 – namely, resolving the south coast sewage crisis, improving road infrastructure, and boosting foreign reserves – Mottley said Barbadians must not be reckless with the island’s future and hand the reins of government to the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), which, in her view, is making a mockery of the elections.
“It worries me that what we have parading as a party asking you for the vote, is nothing but a collection of people otherwise known as a political pelau…. a little bit of this and a little bit of that, a political one two three, at the very time your country is facing its greatest peril.
“What manner of madness is this?” she said.
Mottley charged that there was infighting and no solidified support for DLP president Verla De Peiza ahead of the January 19 polls, further alleging that candidates Richard Sealy, Dr David Estwick, Michael Lashley and Dr Denis Lowe, who have returned to try to win the seats they lost at the last general elections, were battling for party leadership.
“The only thing that those men Richard, Estwick and Lashley are united on – and Lowe, who is too low – is to get rid of the woman. Once they get rid of the woman, then they will fight among themselves on the 20th.”
Mottley strongly defended her government’s track record, pointing to several policy achievements outlined within the party’s manifesto that was released on Saturday.
“It speaks to core values of transformation, it speaks to drivers of national transformation, it speaks to changing a Victorian approach that it is about lock up and lock up,” the Prime Minister said of the BLP manifesto.
“It speaks about changing the disproportionate relationship between who got medical insurance and who don’t got, and why you should be able to get it in this country and why you should have fairness when you get it. It speaks about giving you a chance to own a piece of the rock. It speaks about easing your cost of living by taking personal care items and taking the VAT off of them,” she added. (SB)
