By Emmanuel Joseph
The Barbados Labour Party (BLP) has red-washed all political opponents to score its second successive and historic 30-nil victory at the polls, in Wednesday’s general election.
The final results were announced in the wee hours of Thursday morning as hundreds of red-clad supporters celebrated outside the headquarters of the BLP on Roebuck Street, St Michael in Kadooment style.
Addressing a sea of waiting supporters that gathered on the compound and spilled into the street, Prime Minister-elect Mia Mottley, who said she had agreed to her parliamentary group’s request that she continue as party leader, announced the re-appointment of Dale Marshall as Attorney-General and Santia Bradshaw as Leader of Government Business in the House of Assembly.
Mottley told the crowd she and Marshall will be sworn in later on Thursday at State House by President Dame Sandra Mason.
She said she will be accompanied by Bradshaw, party General Secretary Dr Jerome Walcott, General Secretary of the Barbados Workers Union (BWU) Toni Moore, and BLP administrator Pat Parris.
Mottley also disclosed that she will be allowing the elected parliamentarians to take a break from work and will address the nation on Monday when the country will hear the composition of the rest of her Cabinet.
After introducing the winning team along with Parris, Dr Walcott and political strategist Hartley Henry, the Prime Minister-elect sought to assure Barbadians that despite claims by some that her government wanted a one-party state, nothing could be further from the truth.
“I am a child of democracy. I know what it is to know every single prime minister in this nation since Errol Walton Barrow; and it is that solemn commitment in front of you the people of this nation, in front of the people of the world, and in particular in front of my parliamentary colleagues that we shall continue to keep the best precepts of democracy, transparency and accountability alive to the people of this nation,” Mottley told a cheering crowd.
She went further to say that her administration will be an “opposition for ourselves”.
“Regrettably, there were those who felt that they would form their own opposition and would do the things that would make their country almost difficult to govern. But, tonight, the people have spoken,” Mottley said.
Stating that many of her colleagues had asked how she could have kept the will of the people and their support behind the government in the middle of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the BLP leader declared:
“Barbadians believe in fairness…. We shall share the burden of adjustments together, on condition that we shall share the bounty of accomplishment together,” she said.
Meanwhile, the defeated DLP political leader Verla De Peiza congratulated the BLP and its leader on the victory.
Wednesday’s election, which churned out a similar result to 2018, albeit with some new faces and fringe parties gaining slightly more votes, was the first since the country transitioned to a republic.
Official results are expected to be issued by the Electoral and Boundaries Commission later on Thursday.
