Election Day
I am currently listening to the dissolution of a government as the results come in from the polling stations across Barbados. The Barbados Labour Party has been in power for fourteen years and called elections a scant two weeks ago.Media houses have raked in money hand over fist in the NY style blitz of advertising, hardhitting jingles by top calypsonians, posters, billboards, the works. The erstwhile Prime Minister has graciously conceded and emphasized in his concession speech that in a democracy it is what the people want that counts. Here every vote counts and it is the voice of the people, not an electoral college, that decides who will govern us.
This brief campaign has been characterised by a call for change because it has been felt that after their long tenure of power the Barbados Labour Party had become complacent and arrrogant and forgotten that they are the servants of the people. The Democratic Labour Party, the main opponent, has in its time served long and comfortably and been ousted on a call for change.
The people have spoken. power has changed hands and we have a new government.
No bloodshed. No violence. Very little negative campaigning. And tomorrow business will go on as usual, and we will wait with interest to see whether the longterm projects initiated by the BLP will be finished with ease or bogged down in renegotiations of contracts and the like. We will watch and see if the promises of protecting our land from wholesale purchase by non-nationals will be kept (sorry Oprah!), whether the some of the things that sounded so tempting (as well as unlikely in the long run) will come to be.
We are a small country, 166 square miles, we are highly dependent on imports and our economic mainstay is tourism with the decline of cane sugar as a well subsidized economic asset. Things cannot really change very much. It will be the Dems insteads of the Bees. It will be interesting to be here through this historic change of government. All that remains is to confirm how much of a landslide it has been.
Comments (2)
I'm ashamed to admit I had to look up Barbados on a map. All it brought to mind was "Probably south of Florida"
What made you decide to move from NY to Barbados? They seem like such polar opposites.
Congrats on your people getting what they voted for. I hope the new leaders come through on their promises.