PM confident BLP will hold St John

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley is confident about the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) being able to retain the St John seat.

While canvassing in the constituency with the incumbent Charles Griffith on Saturday, she said her party has indeed put in the work to secure another victory.

St John had been a traditional stronghold of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), being held for years by former prime minster and National Hero Errol Walton Barrow, former prime minister David Thompson and then his widow Mara Thompson after his death in 2010. Griffith was able to wrestle it away from the Dems in the BLP’s clean sweeps of 2018 and 2022.

“If what I’m feeling on the ground happens . . . then I think that they (DLP) may be truly disappointed on the night of the 11th of February,” Mottley said.

“I’m feeling that people still want to be able to support the Barbados Labour Party and to support Charles Griffith. There are some people who may have some expectations and may have wanted to see other things done, but that happens in every area.”

Griffith is being challenged by DLP political leader and president Ralph Thorne, a former BLP parliamentarian who crossed the floor in 2024 to become Opposition Leader.

The Prime Minister cited the emergency efforts which were swiftly undertaken by her administration in St John during the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Elsa in 2021.

“The process of being able to do house repairs in this country would have been affected by Hurricane Elsa. [It] brought 2 700 or so houses that we did not expect to have to do as an emergency and as a crisis. We had to move people into Codrington College. We had to move people into the Labour College. We had to move people into apartments and houses all over the country. That therefore put off everything.

“Tell me what you could do outside in Barbados when COVID was on? Tell me how many roads could get fixed when COVID was on? When we came to office, the Government was broke. So, for the first 19 months you had no money to do anything. And then in the next two-and-a-half to three years, you had the problem that you had lockdowns where nothing physical outside could happen. So I just give you this to give you context,” she added.

The BLP leader stated that despite these challenges, her administration remained a strong one.

“The Government is not perfect – far from it – but I believe that we are a good Government. I believe that we have taken this country from where it was when we inherited it to where confidence is back there again. Are there things that still have to be done? Absolutely. And will they be done? Absolutely. We are putting more money in roads, more money in a whole set of Government services that we would never have done before because we have the money to do it now.

“We’re not fully flush, but we are much better than we were. So I’m comfortable. I’m comfortable also that Bajans understand that we live in a world where the world is at war with itself and therefore, what is required is serious leadership. What is required is the capacity to anticipate and prepare and to allow us to be able to put people first,” she added. (SG)

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