A simmering row has broken out in Barbados over the integrity of the voters’ list, just two weeks before the nation votes in general elections called more than a year before being constitutionally due.
The main opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP) has demanded that the Feb. 11 date be pushed back a bit, as the party and Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne say hundreds of eligible persons are missing from the electoral roll.
Therefore, the elections and boundaries commission should be given some additional time to make amendments. The party has even threatened to seek a court injunction to force the government’s hand.
In fact, Thorne says, the commission has until Jan. 31 to complete work on the list, and yet Prime Minister Mia Mottley “has rushed ahead of the commission and called an election before the list is completed. Something is rotten in the state of Barbados today,” Thorne told reporters this week. “This has thrown the whole thing into disarray. That is wrong. The PM has been calling this election. There are many irregularities,” he says.
Angered by what she considers an unusual and abnormal attack on the integrity of Barbadian elections, the PM said she had taken unprecedented emergency measures to invite international electoral observers to monitor the polls and pronounce on their integrity. She fears the nation’s name will be sullied by opposition questions over the fairness of its general elections.
Late-hour requests for observer teams from the Caribbean Community and the Commonwealth have already been sent out. Mottley, seeking a third consecutive term after winning all 30 parliamentary seats in the past two elections, says she fears the DLP will hurt Barbados’ reputation as a stable and responsible democracy, one without a history of questionable elections.
So, she says her Barbados government has “gone to great lengths to protect the reputation of Barbados and Barbadians. I will do what Barbados has never had to do before. I am not going to allow anybody to put this country’s reputation at risk.” She argues that neither her governing Barbados Labor Party (BLP) nor the DLP has ever been directly responsible for organizing general elections and that the BLP is amazed at the position of its main rival.
Providing a few details about missing names, Thorne pointed to relatives of former Prime Minister David Thompson, saying they have been removed by partisan persons. “A list of over 8,000 persons was published to be disenfranchised, and they were given a matter of days to have that rectified. That is not right.” He says many have approached DLP officials complaining about being kicked off the list.
“We haven’t gone out looking for clients. People have approached our candidates and complained that they were denied a basic, fundamental right,” he told reporters.
Early surveys indicate that the BLP will win a majority of votes and likely win a third consecutive term.
