Will Bajans Hand Prime Minister Mia Mottley A Decisive Victory Again?

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Barbadians go to the polls on Wednesday to elect a new government with political observers indicating that while the ruling Barbados Labour Party (BLP) is high favoured to retain power, it will do so without the overwhelming majority it enjoyed in the last  two parliaments.

Prime Minister Mia Mottley called the general election more than a year ahead of the scheduled constitutional deadline no doubt hoping to repeat the 30-nil victories the BLP enjoyed in the last two general elections.

The Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) said an estimated 271 205 persons are eligible to vote on Wednesday with the Chief Electoral Officer, Sherland Turton, saying “we have our books ready, every constituency returning officer would have checked the books to ensure that they were okay, properly sequenced in numbers. So, we are ready”.

But the leader of the main opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Ralph Thorne, has repeatedly raised concerns about what he described as irregularities in the voters’ list, alleging the removal of eligible voters and the inclusion of deceased 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,” Thorne told reporters on Nomination Day on January 27, and that thousands of Barbadians were at risk of being disenfranchised with little time for correction.

Thorne said DLP members were approached by citizens who believed they had been wrongly removed from the register, including people who were “alive and resident in Barbados”.

For the first time in its political history, Barbados is allowing foreign observers to monitor the polls with Prime Minister Mottley insisting that the move will safeguard the country’s long-standing reputation for democracy and integrity, while rejecting opposition calls to postpone the poll.BLP leader Mia Mottley

“We spend our time trying to protect the reputation of this nation, and we go to great lengths to protect the reputation of Barbados and Barbadians, and I’m not going to, under any circumstances, agree that it should be sullied,” Mottley said after filing her nomination papers to contest the St Michael North East seat

A total of 96 candidates have been nominated to contest the election with the regional political analyst and pollster, Peter Wickham saying “it is a record number of candidates”.

Wickham told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that while the election is seen as a straight fight between the BLP and the DLP,  a significant number of candidates from four other political parties, in addition to a couple of independents are contesting seats.

“I don’t know if that’s unprecedented, but certainly it is one of the highest number of alternative candidates. These reflect the fact that there is a feeling that the Democratic Labour Party won’t do well and as a result they (other candidates) want to see if they could steal the opposition’s spot”.

One of the parties contesting the polls is the group, Friends of Democracy (FOD), an off shoot of the DLP, which has openly stated that it wants to be in the parliament.

DLP leader Ralph Thorne“We have 12 candidates and we are more than confident going into this election. We definitely want to represent Barbados and we are definitely ready to serve the people… people first,” FOD president Karina Goodridge told reporters.

“In Barbados, we’ve recognised that people have lost confidence in the MPs and we definitely have to build up their confidence,” she said, pointing to road infrastructure, crime and housing as key concerns raised by voters.

Wickham said that such an attitude may be a factor in the outcome of the elections given that there are some “marginal” seats and “certainly in a marginal seat how you split the vote could only help the government”.

As many as five constituencies have emerged as likely battlegrounds for Wednesday’s general election, with Wickham and another political analyst, Dr. George Belle, forecasting nail-biting contests.

Belle notes that St Philip, where there are two  constituencies, it has traditionally been the base from which the DLP has used to rebuild, but is questioning how that strategy will unfold this time around following the defection of Michael Lashley, a former St Philip North and cabinet minister under the DLP.

“The St Philip seats are always the base from which the DLP can recover first, but in St Philip North they performed best in the last two general elections and they lost Michael Lashley,”  Belle told the BARBADOS TODAY online publication.

“That is something that would have strengthened their chances, and they don’t have that now,” he said noting also that the St Philip West seat is also competitive.

He said while the seat has long been viewed as an area of weakness for the BLP, the presence of multiple candidates to challenge the incumbent Kay McConney could dilute the DLP vote.

“St Philip has been identified for some time as a constituency with weakness in the BLP and one of the better-performing seats for the Democratic Labour Party,” he said.

Wickham told CMC that another factor in the election is the “large number” of voters who have publicly expressed the view that while they have no “issue”  with the ruling BLP, they are unhappy with the DLP  and so they will not vote.

“So they are not happy enough to vote for the BLP, but they are not so unhappy that they will want to vote against the BLP, and significantly, a number of these people have indicated they will be remaining at home.  So that’s something we will also have to factor in,”  he added.

He said of the marginal seats at play in the election, “it would require a level of  electoral swing that is only associated with landslide areas and this is not likely to be a landslide area and so for all intents and purpose these are the seats the Democratic Labur Party could  get, but there is really be no  clear indication as to how many of  them (seats) will go.

“You could get a situation where all of them go to the Barbados Labour Party or the alternatively you could get a situation where some of them are hung, where people get a plurality but not necessarily a majority which would help the Barbados Labour Party.

‘Or you could get a situation where they are won by the Democratic Labour Party. My sense is that they will not be won by any of the alaternative political parties ,”  Wickham said.

Both Mottley and Thorne are confident of victory in Wednesday’s general election. Both parties have issued their manifestoes promising socio-economic development over the next five years. Issues such as crime and the economy have been among the front burner issues.

“In this election, our promises and performance document is called, The Red Record,” the BLP said telling the electorate that despite its overwhelming majority in the Parliament it has acted responsibly.

“We have been tested and proven that as a Government we can handle whatever is thrown at us. We have faced the most dangerous social, economic, environmental and complex problems of any previous government and shielded Bajans from the worst of it all, including external threats. In these times of global crisis, have kept Barbados safe and Bajans secure,”  the BLP said, adding “we believe our manifesto is a social contract with the people, on which we must deliver”.

For its part, the DLP says on Wednesday, Barbadians face a clear choice: continue with broken promises, or choose a future where people truly come first.

“This election is not about slogans—it is about direction, values, and leadership that serves the people. Barbados deserves a government that listens, plans, and acts in the national interest.

“The Democratic Labour Party offers a clear alternative rooted in the Barbados First vision—putting families, workers, and communities at the centre of decision-making. This is about restoring trust, rebuilding hope, and choosing a future that works for everyone. The future will not change unless we choose it,”  the  DLP said.

During the campaign, Thorne was critical of Prime Minister Mottley for upstaging his plans to unveil the DLP’s manifesto after she brandished the document 24 hours before it was set to be officially launched.

The two had already locked horns when Thorne had suggested that the snap election had created “disarray” because the voters’ list had not yet been finalised by the EBC.

“As you know, January 31 has not come, so before that statutory period has arrived, an election has been called, which has thrown the whole thing into disarray…the election has been called before the list has been completed, and that is wrong,” Thorne said.

But Mottley  urged Thorne, a King Counsel, to “read the law”, citing Section 13(1) of the Representation of the People Act, which states that “the commission shall cause to be prepared and shall publish not later than the 31st of January in every year, a register of electors for each constituency and a register of foreign service electors entitled to vote at any election”.

“That register was published on the 15th of January, before I announced the election…and, and therefore constituted the official 2026 register. So let us first of all put aside that misinterpretation of what the law actually says. Having said that, once an election is called, preliminary lists are published,” said Mottley, who was the youngest person ever appointed as a Queen’s Counsel in Barbados.

Wickham said like St.  Lucia where the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) of Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre last December called an election one year ahead of the constitutional deadline, “we have to see whether it will have a similar benefit”.

The  SLP won 14 of the 17 seats in the parliament, with the two independent candidates that were supportive of the last administration also being victorious, leaving only former prime  minister Allen Chastanet as the lone opposition figure in the parliament.