FOR the first time since becoming a republic under President Sandra Mason last November, Barbados will go to the polls on Wednesday in a snap election called by Prime Minister Mia Mottley.
That is, unless the law courts agree to an 11th-hour injunction filed by Barbados Sovereignty Party (BSP) candidate Philip Catlyn to postpone the polls, on the ground that owing to the pandemic, too many covid19-positive citizens will be debarred from voting. Barbados Elections and Boundaries Commission chairman Leslie Haynes, QC, has said under covid19 protocols, infected citizens will not be allowed to vote. These are estimated at almost 6,000 people out of a registered electorate of 266,330.
Some 108 candidates from three main parties – the ruling BLP, DLP and the newly formed Alliance Party for Progress – and several minor parties, plus nine independent candidates, are contesting 30 seats.
With nomination day held on January 3, special voting got under way last Wednesday.
Mottley, Barbados Labour Party (BLP) leader, made a clean sweep of all 30 parliamentary seats in the last election on May 24, 2018, after which one MP, Bishop Joseph Atherley, crossed the floor to become opposition leader.
But in a televised national address on December 27 last year, she called a fresh election 18 months before it was constitutionally due, seeking a fresh mandate against rumblings in what she decried as the current "silly season." She said amid the pandemic, the economy had shrunk by 17 per cent, plunging her government's revenues by one third.
Mottley said with her 29-one seat parliamentary majority she could have ridden out covid19, but feared that division in Barbados would stunt the country's progress for the next 20-30 years, adding, "It is so vitally necessary to end the silly season.
"I need for us to unite around a common cause, unite behind a single government, unite behind a single leader, unite against threats to our safety, development and prosperity."
Her calling a snap election came against the backdrop of an ongoing wrangle with certain trade unions, including that representing nurses.
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