St Philip West candidates ready for battle

It will be the case of a newcomer on the block versus a previously defeated but experienced practitioner in the January polls, as the campaign trail for St Philip West heated up following the nominations of Kay McConney as the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate and Dr David Estwick for the Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

Speaking to the media at the Princess Margaret Secondary School where the two submitted their papers, McConney, who replaces John King as candidate, said party supporters had been welcoming her thus far, and she was confident of keeping the seat for her party.

“It has been going fabulously well. What I like about it is that the people of St Philip West are very welcoming to me, they are very open about what they want to see in representation, and I am excited to be part of this going forward,” she said.

“The people of Barbados understand that the Barbados Labour Party is really the best for this country, and if they have the interest of this country at heart and if they love this country, and if they love this community of St Philip West, I believe that they will return the Barbados Labour Party to the seat.”

Estwick, who lost the 2018 elections to King, responded to those who question his return to elective politics, saying he was confident of his chances at the polls.

He said his previous experience at various levels of government should be enough to produce a victory for him.

“The reality is that every politician will lose an election. In the Caribbean, we have had multiple elections where all seats were won by one party on several occasions, so that for me is just political rhetoric.

“In the final analysis, when you are nominated, it is the constituents in a constituency who will determine whether they support you or not. As I said before, I never left the constituency. Even after I’ve been defeated I stayed with the people in St Philip West, and I am sure they will be able to judge me based on that approach,” Estwick explained.

Citing a worrying decline in job opportunities within the constituency, high cost of living, and the mounting pressure on Barbadians to make ends meet daily, the former Minister of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Water Resource Management said the time was right for him to re-enter the political arena and help chart a new path for citizens.

Though he admitted there were several areas of concern that have contributed to Barbados’ current social and economic decline, Estwick said it was the recent comments by the head of the COVID Monitoring Unit, Ronald Chapman, that COVID-positive persons should stay at home on Election Day and no provisions to vote would be made for those in government controlled-facilities and home isolation, that have come into his direct focus.

He said such a stance was unacceptable in a democratic society.

“I believe very strongly that there are technologies that would allow those types of persons, who are not incapacitated, to utilize the technology to vote. We need to wake up and understand that that has been happening around the world,” the DLP candidate said.

“I went school and when you are in medicine, the first thing they use to tell us is the 5 Ps… Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. That should have been planned out, knowing that you have to deal with COVID for about two years. We should not be disenfranchising nobody in Barbados who is not mentally incapacitated or physically incapacitated.”

Estwick further suggested that increasing polling stations, extending the hours persons can vote, and other options should be on the cards to guarantee all eligible Barbadians are able to execute their constitutional right.

If Lynette Eastmond gets the nod of voters in St Philip West in the polls, her mission will be to return “ integrity to governance.”

As she emerged from the Princess Margaret Secondary School after completing the nomination process, she voiced her disappointment with politics that has lost sight of the people.

“We need to bring back some kind of integrity to Government and we also need to bring back a circumstance where politicians focus on development politics because that seems to have disappeared. In the past, politicians had to campaign whether, for example, they are going to put new health care facilities in the constituencies, if they are going to build new schools. Now it seems to me that many of the elections have turned into a spectacle, where there is a lot of food , drinking, dancing and money being spent and not a lot of focus on development,” said the Alliance Party for Progress candidate.

Eastmond, who believes she has worked on behalf of St Philip West, wants the development of more programmes to help disengaged youth. She also insisted there must be a plan to get more Barbadians to grow their own food. (SB)