Barbados: Barbados elects first female prime minister in opposition landslide | Reuters

Barbados elected its first female prime minister as the opposition inflicted a crushing defeat on the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP), winning all the seats in the Caribbean island’s parliament, election results showed on Friday. Mia Mottley’s victory in Thursday’s elections returns the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to power on the island of some 285,000 people for the first time in a decade. The Electoral and Boundaries Commission said the BLP had elected all 30 members of the parliament, delivering the first clean sweep in the history of the legislature. The DLP had previously held a slim majority with 16 seats. “This victory is the people of Barbados’ victory,” Mottley, 52, told supporters outside the BLP’s Bridgetown headquarters early on Friday, calling the result a vote for a more inclusive and transparent kind of leadership for Barbados.

Barbados: Barbados’s mucky election – Polluted politics | The Economist

Puddles of sewage dapple the potholed road into Hastings, a tourist hub on Barbados’s southern coast. Tanker lorries parked by the roadside suck up stinking waste. The liquid forming one large pool at nearby Accra beach is not seawater. The governments of the United States, Britain, Canada and Germany recently warned tourists about raw sewage. Hotels complain of cancelled bookings, and a few businesses have shut. The stench comes at an inconvenient time for Barbados’s prime minister, Freundel Stuart, who faces an election on May 24th. If the opinion polls are correct, his Democratic Labour Party (DLP), which has governed for ten years, will be thrashed by the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP). The parties do not disagree much on ideas or policies, so they fight each other with accusations of corruption and incompetence. The sewage crisis has given Mia Mottley, the opposition leader, plenty of muck to fling.

Barbados: Prime Minister faces tough election test | Reuters

Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart will attempt to become the first leader of his center-left ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) in decades to secure re-election when the Caribbean island goes to the polls on Thursday. In a battle expected to be closely contested, former minister Mia Mottley is bidding to stop him. She hopes to end 10 years on the sidelines for the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), also a center-left party and the DLP’s main opposition. If elected, Mottley, 52, would become the country’s first female prime minister since independence from Britain in 1966.

Barbados: Barbados Electoral Office Sticks to Guns on Not Allowing Commonwealth Citizens to Vote | Caribbean360

The Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) is holding firm to its position that Commonwealth citizens in Barbados are not eligible to vote in the May 24 general election unless they have permanent resident or immigrant status. And one of the lawyers representing four non-nationals embroiled in a legal battle with the EBC has warned the Commission that there will be hell to pay if it persists in “blatantly ignoring” the Court of Appeal ruling on the eligibility of qualified Commonwealth citizens to vote. Gregory Nicholls said yesterday that that the electoral management body was flirting with danger and would “suffer the consequences of their actions”.

Barbados: DLP retains government in Barbados general election | Caribbean360

Barbadian voters kept with tradition and provided the incumbent party with a second consecutive term in power following a nerve jangling general elections here on Thursday. According to the preliminary results, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) won 16 of the 30 seats in the elections with the remainder going to the main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP). In the 2008 general election, the DLP won 20 seats. Prime Minister Freundel Stuart in thanking supporters for the narrow victory, said “we are not here tonight celebrating the victory because of any sponsorship or support from the …fortune tellers of Barbados, the dividers or even the obeah men of Barbados. “We celebrating tonight because of the confidence which ordinary men and women….who have not arrogated to themselves the right to what the future holds,” he told supporters, adding “we are celebrating because this organisation during the last five years touched actual lives by its policies and programmes, not to any sample, but to the population itself”.

Barbados: Voters to elect new leader after a close and brief campaign | chicagotribune.com

Voters in Barbados will cast ballots on Thursday in a close but low key race between the ruling Democratic Labour Party led by Prime Minister Freundel Stuart and the opposition Barbados Labour Party led by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur. Thirty seats in Parliament are at stake in the general election in the southeast Caribbean nation of 290,000 people, with the leader of the winning party becoming prime minister. Polling released on Monday by the Caribbean Development Research Services Inc, or CADRES, gave a slight margin in favor of the opposition Barbados Labour Party, or BLP, both in terms of seats and in popular support.

Barbados: 67 candidates to contest Barbados general election | Caribbean360

Sixty-seven candidates, including seven independents, have been nominated to contest the February 21 general election, according to electoral officials. Both the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) and the main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) have nominated candidates to contest all 30 seats in the Barbados parliament. In a festive atmosphere and surrounded by party supporters, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart filed his papers at the Graydon Sealy Secondary School where he was warmly greeted by students. After completing the process, Stuart, the parliamentary representative for the St. Michael South constituency, warned that the DLP’s campaign would now move into high gear as it seeks another five year term in office.

Barbados: Two elections two days apart | New York Amsterdam News

Voters in two not-so-politically insignificant nations of the Caribbean trade bloc will go to the polls this month to elect a new government two days apart in much the same way they did in 1999, with pollsters predicting an uphill task for two prime ministers who are widely regarded as the dullest and most uncharismatic of regional leaders in recent times. Grenada’s Tillman Thomas, whose New National Democratic Congress (NDC) had won 11 of the 15 constituency seats when Grenadians last voted in 2008, is facing an electorate that is well aware that his NDC has split down the middle. Some of its best-known names, including former Foreign Minister Peter David, walked out on him for various reasons—his dour leadership style being one of them.

Barbados: Political parties nominate candidates for upcoming election | Caribbean360

The two main political parties here have nominated candidates to contest the 30 seats in the February 21 general elections ahead of the official Nomination day on February 6. In the unprecedented move, not witnessed before in Caribbean politics, the main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) led by former prime minister Owen Arthur marched to the Treasury Building on Thursday to pay the required US$125 per candidate. “This is a party that knows how to plan and to take charge of its affairs. And today, you have seen for the first time in the history of Barbados, a group of candidates constituting themselves as team which can become the next government of Barbados coming together in unison.