BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Friday May 25, 2018 – Eight years to the day that Kamla Persad-Bissessar led her United National Congress to an election victory and became Trinidad and Tobago’s first female prime minister, Mia Mottley followed suit, but in more convincing fashion.
Mottley’s Barbados Labour Party (BLP) won a clean sweep of the 30 seats up for grabs in yesterday’s election, becoming the first party in Barbados ever to do so and putting the 52-year-old veteran politician in the history books as the country’s first female leader.
The results had been slow in coming in from a day of voting that had featured reports of some people not being able to find their names on the voters’ list – which led to an emergency hearing before the Chief Justice who ordered that 18 names added; complaints of poor direction at polling stations; and long lines at polling stations which resulted in some people leaving without casting their ballots.
Counting did not begin in most constituencies until well after 10 p.m. last night, and results trickled in in the early hours of Friday from the vote in which a record 132 candidates contested the polls.
But even before the counting was over, former prime minister Freundel Stuart conceded defeat.
Delivering her victory speech before a crowd at the BLP’s headquarters, where she headed after trouncing her rivals in the St Michael East riding – she got 4,553 votes compared to the 500 for the Democratic Labour Party’s Patrick Todd, 133 won by first-timer Kemar Stuart of Solutions Barbados, and 37 votes mustered by Barbados Free Party member Enlou Frere – Mottley said the win by the former opposition party was “the people of Barbados’ victory”.
She told the jubilant crowd that now is not the time for gloating, but a time for healing and for all to join forces to help rebuild the country.
“There should be no time for gloating. We are all one people. We are Barbadians. We will need many hands to help make light work. We will rebuild Barbados together,” Mottley said. “We have to get to the task immediately.”
The prime minister in waiting also addressed the issue of the absence of an opposition which resulted from the BLP’s whitewash of the former ruling party.
“I am deeply conscious that with the absence of an official Opposition in the House of Assembly we will have to evolve institutional arrangements to be able to allow Barbadians to have a greater say in the governance of this country. All ideas must contend before government takes a decision,” she promised.
“There is no way that there will be a mistrust of the absolute mandate that you have given us the people of the BLP. We will be your servants at all times.”
Mottley also reiterated her campaign promises and assured that her government would work to ensure Barbadians had more disposal income.
“We will give you a commitment that within the next few months that will be business number one for us,” she said, later indicating that she intended to select her Cabinet before next Monday.
During her speech, the BLP leader announced that all schools would be closed today and that she had encouraged businesses, except supermarkets and banks, to close at 1 p.m.
The BLP’s 30-nil victory came just over two months after a similar clean sweep in Grenada, where the New National Party of Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell won all 15 seats in Parliament.