Prime Minister Mia Mottley says her new administration will introduce legislation governing how lawmakers cross the floor following general elections, after her Barbados Labour Party (BLP) secured another landslide victory in Barbados.
Mottley, whose party won Wednesday’s general election by a 30-nil margin — matching the results of the two previous polls — said the proposed anti-defection measure will be among priority items once her new Cabinet is sworn in on Monday.
She noted that after each of the last two elections, successful BLP candidates crossed the floor to become opposition leaders. Addressing the issue, Mottley said her parliamentary party agreed during a meeting Thursday to move quickly on new legislation.
“When her parliamentary party met on Thursday to ratify her position as prime minister, ‘we also agreed as a parliamentary party that one of the first bills that we will introduce into this Parliament is what we would call anti-defection legislation for persons crossing the floor.’”
The prime minister said the proposal came from party members who argued that elected representatives who leave the platform on which they were elected should return to voters for validation.
“If you are prepared to break, whether voluntarily or by whatever means, that you should go back to the polls and allow people to be able to validate your decision,” Mottley said, while acknowledging that the Barbadian constitution does not formally recognize political parties.
She said, however, that voters cast ballots based on party affiliation, policies and manifestos.
“The de facto reality is that people run on a political party ticket and people are accepted not only in their own individual right, but also as the representative of this party, its programmes, its policies, its manifesto,” she said.
Mottley added that candidates reinforce this commitment by signing the party manifesto and pledging to be bound by its contents.
The prime minister also said her government will again offer additional Senate appointments to the party receiving the second-highest number of votes, calling on the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to participate.
“I did it once, I did it twice, and I will do it three times. It is up to the Democratic Labour Party again. I trust and pray that they will do what the country expects of them to be able to appoint two persons,” Mottley said.
She added that the government is prepared to act early to facilitate those appointments within the current constitutional framework.
