Prime Minister Mia A. Mottley casts her vote in St Michael, Barbados. Photo: Nigel R Browne/Reuters

Barbados Prime Minister Mia A. Mottley's Barbados Labor Party controls 29 of the legislature’s 30 seats. Photo: Reuters

PM Mia A. Mottley had said the snap elections is not to hold on to power but to help promote unity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, which has heavily hit the country’s tourism-focused economy. Photo: socanews.com

The 56-year-old’s Barbados Labour Party (BLP) won all 30 seats, up from 29 in 2018 in an election marred by complaints that thousands of COVID-19 positive Bajans were denied a vote.

Mottley came to international attention last year when she castigated global leaders at Cop26 and her government jettisoned the Queen as head of state, installing the singer Rihanna as an official national hero at the same time.

Her clean-sweep victory over the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) suggests voters did not blame her for the island’s tourism revenues falling by 90% during her truncated first term due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Huge crowds celebrated into the early hours of Thursday outside BLP’s headquarters in the capital, Bridgetown, after Barbados’s midnight curfew was lifted for the night.

In her victory speech, Mottley said the landslide victory would allow her government to “lead the country first to safety and then to prosperity” and to prepare Barbados for the challenges “of the next 10 to 15 years”. These include climate change and antimicrobial resistance, she said.

See previous article published January 19, 2022

Bajans go to the polls today, January 19, 2022

Just two months after removing the British Queen as its sovereign by becoming a Republic, Barbados is today, Wednesday, January 19, 2022, holding general elections called by Prime Minister Mia A. Mottley.

PM Mottley had said the snap elections is not to hold on to power but to help promote unity in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, which has heavily hit the country’s tourism-focused economy.

Mottley, whose Barbados Labor Party controls 29 of the legislature’s 30 seats, in a campaign speech in the community of Pie Corner on the northeast end of the island on Monday, January 17, 2022, made little mention of the pandemic, focusing instead on public works carried out under her party and berating rivals’ lack of leadership.

Snap elections ‘alarming’- Opposition

Verla De Peiza of the opposition Democratic Labour Party has called the snap election – called a year and a half before the law requires – “alarming to our democracy” and raised questions about the public health risks of the vote and limitations on suffrage of those infected with COVID-19.

Some 5,000 people of a population just under 300,000 were in isolation after being infected with coronavirus, according to official figures.

Mottley on Monday said the opposition had filed a court injunction seeking to stop the election.

The lawsuit alleges that the exclusion of people quarantined due to the coronavirus is a violation of voting rights, according to local media reports.

Meanwhile, Virgin Islands News Online will be among the first to provide the results of the general elections.