Eulana Weekes
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Following a sweep by the Barbados Labour Party on Wednesday, January 19, respected Barbadian pollster and Political Analyst, Mr. Peter Wickham was invited to WINN Media’s ‘Island Tea’ to comment on the election results.
Wickham first addressed the matter of a low voter turnout, the lowest in Barbados’ history.
“In the case of Barbados, the voter turnout was 44 percent, which was low; the lowest ever in our history. It’s a 26 percent reduction on the previous year, but it’s consistent with what we had in the other elections in the Caribbean that were held during Covid,” he said
Having reviewed the data after the elections, the pollster said, persons who did not vote were potentially the supporters of the Democratic Labour Party, who basically did not show up at the polls because they are dissatisfied with the party that they support. Wickham, therefore, addressed the culture of Caribbean elections and party attachments.
“This has to reaffirm in my mind the behaviour of the Barbados election and elections of the Caribbean in some regard, that when you’re presented with a situation where the party that you love is not performing up to scratch, that just seems to be a reason to stay home and that’s a way of changing governments, expressing dissatisfaction; but it’s not that we’re gonna change from being a supporter of one party to the other, we just stay at home instead of supporting that party.”
Though victorious, Wickham indicated that the Barbados Labour Party had a negative swing of 5 percent. The Democratic Labour Party on the other hand, had a positive swing of 5 percent; but it was not enough to bring victory in any of the constituencies.
The Barbados Labour Party, therefore, claimed all the seats for a second time, with Mia Amor Mottley as Prime Minister.
