IT'S MIA AGAIN!

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley has led her Barbados Labour Party(BLP) to an unprecedented third consecutive clean sweep in general elections on Wednesday, February 11th.

Inasmuch as early polling hinted at the proverbial ‘three-peat’ for Mottley and the BLP, the election result still came as a surprise to many.

Not only had Barbados’s first female prime minister secured a third straight term for her party and government, but she also accomplished it in an unbroken third clean sweep.

The snap general election in Barbados, called a full year ahead of the constitutional end of the five-year governing period, again saw Mottley and the BLP snap up all 30 seats in the country’s parliament.

"Our mission first ​and foremost is to stop poor people from being poor, and to remove injustice wherever it ​exists to create opportunities for people," the BL leader and returning prime minister said in a victory speech on Wednesday night, during which she also declared Friday a national holiday.

Tremendously popular on the international stage as a leading voice speaking out on behalf of small island states - especially on climate change and environmental issues - it was felt that the Opposition would have sought to exploit perceived weaknesses in her national policies.

“People empowerment must come before international praise. Accountability and transparency must come before PR(public relations) and optics,” said new DLP leader Ralph Thorne when Mottley launched her third re-election bid on January 17th. He said his party has been in a process of regrouping and rebuilding following its humiliating defeat in the 2022 election.

With Mr Thorne himself failing to win a seat, it’s back to the drawing board for the DLP as it again failed to nudge the dial of its political misfortunes.

In addition to the historically main parties of the BLP and the DLP, eight other political parties contested the election with a total of 93 candidates. Three parties joined forces: the United Progressive Party (UPP), the New National Party (NNP), and the Conservative Barbados Leadership Party (CBLP) formed a new coalition called the People’s Coalition for Progress (PCP). They also failed to win a single seat among themselves.