PM’s cry: Come out and vote

Come out and vote, urged leader of the Barbados Labour Party, Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, on Monday night.

Polls and discussions on the February 11 General Election, along with leadership, have focused on the undecided voters and voter apathy. A Nation/Starcom commissioned poll conducted in mid-January revealed nearly half of the electorate is either uncertain or has no plans to vote.

Mottley, on a platform mounted at Bush Hall Yard Gap, St Michael, in support of BLP St Michael Central candidate Tyra Trotman, said the team was ready to have a doubly red Valentine’s Day celebration. 

“But that can only happen if people come out and vote and for the next seven, eight days, that is going to be my singular message. Whatever else I talk about, it is about getting people to understand that without the vote, there is nothing.

“There is no ballot box that opens up with any votes. It starts with zero and it’s like I heard someone using the analogy, no matter how great a century, Shai Hope could make a double-century tonight but that is tonight and [if] he doesn’t make it tomorrow you can’t get nowhere,” she said.

Mottley told those on hand that similarly, no matter how many times they have voted for her or any other candidates, that was inthe past.

“It is the next polling day that matters and I want to speak to you because in many respects, the manifesto of the Barbados Labour Party has been influenced by you,” Mottley said to the party faithful gathered in the area, which adjoins her St Michael North East constituency.

She went on to highlight some of the initiatives listed in the just launched manifesto, including the $1 700 annual reverse tax credit for those earning up to $25 000.

She said 18 000 people have gotten back every cent in tax paid yearly from 2020 to 2025.

Kirk Humphrey, candidate for St Michael South, said the DLP was an organisation of delusion and panic, asking voters to believe that a country that has 18 consecutive quarters of growth under the BLP administration is worse off than a country that had every consecutive downgrade after downgrade under the DLP.

He credited the BLP with passing the Child Protection Bill while others were marching in protest.

“They then said that that bill had something to do with LGBTQ+ rights. It has nothing at all to do with anything to do with LGBTQ+. A grown man or a grown woman can do what they want to do and it’s not my business but it’s not the case for children and it’s not written into our legislation,” Humphrey said. (AC)

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