Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has made regional political history, becoming the second Caribbean leader to win every seat in a national Parliament on three separate occasions, as her Barbados Labour Party (BLP) secured another landslide victory in Wednesday’s general election.
Mottley, 60, now joins former Grenada Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, who had become the first regional leader to achieve multiple clean sweeps of his country’s Parliament. She has led the BLP to consecutive whitewash victories since first capturing all 30 seats in the Barbados Parliament in the May 24, 2018 general election, when she became the country’s first female prime minister.
“We are humbled by your confidence and trust. Thank you. Let us now come together as one people to continue building our nation,” the BLP said in a statement posted on its Facebook page.
In Wednesday’s vote, Mottley comfortably retained her St Michael North East constituency and later told supporters gathered at the party’s headquarters in Bridgetown that her new Cabinet is expected to be sworn in on Monday, with the first sitting of the new Parliament scheduled for next Friday.
“Something special happen in the country today,” Mottley said ahead of a planned thank you rally on Saturday.
Reflecting on her first electoral victory in 2018, she said her administration had pledged to stabilise Barbados.
“We thought we would move to a growth path,” she said, noting that shortly after taking office, Barbados faced the global COVID-19 pandemic and that over the last two and a half years, the Government had begun a mission to transform the country.
“We did not come to hold office, we come to make Barbados better and your lives better,” she said, noting that next month the BLP will mark its 88th anniversary as a political organisation.
Mottley, an attorney, said both the party and the Government remain focused on what “Barbadians want us to focus on,” even as she warned of challenges in safeguarding the country’s democracy as it approaches its 60th year of political independence and fifth year as a republic.
She urged citizens to share responsibility for the nation’s transformation and to unite in addressing both local and geopolitical challenges. Mottley also expressed concern about the state of the opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP), stressing the need for “strong institutions” and recalling her efforts to ensure opposition representation in the Senate following previous BLP clean sweeps.
Meanwhile, DLP leader Ralph Thorne was defeated in the St John constituency, receiving 1,876 votes compared with 2,327 for BLP candidate Charles Griffith and 236 for Kemar Stuart.
Thorne, who had been elected to represent Christ Church South for the BLP in the last general election before crossing the floor to become Opposition leader, conceded defeat.
“We acquitted ourselves well, fought a clean campaign.”
“The result is quite disappointing, no explanation for it,” he said.
On Wednesday, Thorne also complained that he was unable to cast his ballot, telling reporters he had lived in Christ Church East for more than 20 years. He said he was directed to vote in another constituency but refused.
“The position I take is that to vote in Rendezvous is to commit fraud, certainly as it relates to my address”.
“So I consider that I have been denied the right to vote due to an administrative error by the Electoral and Boundaries Commission,” he told reporters.
University lecturer and former DLP president Dr Ronnie Yearwood said the electorate had sent a clear signal to the party.
“You can’t lose three times in this way and believe what you are doing,” Yearwood said, urging internal reform. “This is not where we want to be…but the public has given the party a third defeat”.
Political scientist and pollster Peter Wickham said the election outcome reflected more on the opposition than the governing party.
He said the ruling BLP has “grown and evolved” while the DLP has not, adding that the result is “more about the DLP and what it has to do”.
“It has to make hard decisions,” Wickham said, describing the DLP’s campaign as “horrible” and arguing that its leader should step aside.
“The party has to start looking for a new leader and identify new talent,” he added.
For the first time in Barbados’ political history, the general election was observed by foreign teams from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Commonwealth.
