Philip KingIf you’re currently residing in Barbados then you’ve probably heard about the recent, catastrophic landslide which ripped away every Democratic Labor Party seat in our house of assembly. At a glance you may assume that our new government must be some heaven sent dream team, however, the truth is far more disappointing..
Reason 1: Slanderous Campaign Tactics
We’re all very aware of Barbados’ prevalent issues, dwindling reserves, sewage on the south coast, an influx sargassum seaweed… the list goes on, however the opposition’s campaign strategy overlooked ALL of these pressing matters and placed focus on what they had established as the common enemy. Mia Mottley
It confuses me that in 2018 our previous leaders still believe the people of Barbados will rally behind their archaic views on same sex marriage, our previous ministers took to the stage at their rallies to refer to our Honorable prime minister as a “Wicker” while using other vulgar language to describe her and her Minister of Energy & Water, the hon. Wilfred Abrahams, disregarding the much more pressing issues facing Barbados’ such as a rapidly approaching devaluation of our dollar.
(The IMF recently quoted the true value of our currency nearing $11BDS/$1USD)
It is no wonder that these tactics resulted in significant Backlash from the Social Media community as a video of the speech went viral on Facebook & Instagram.
Reason 2: PURE IG-NUH-RUNCE
Have you done the math? You’ve probably also heard one of our now defeated ministers recently state proudly on a popular local media outlet that 80% could never be greater than 20% .. such Mathematical proficiency highlights the level of competence that our victorious Barbados Labor Party was competing against, a very low bar for any professional team to compete with for the leadership of our country.
Further comments about the quality of our countries water, the benefits of Potholes in our streets (Which allegedly encouraged safer driving and increased tourism according to the opposition) and full faced lies about our countries fiscal position went onto make this election one of the easiest decisions Barbadians have ever had to make.
Reason 3: Technological Awareness
Finally, this election season was one of the first to receive the genuine attention of the young population of Barbados, the Barbadian youth were seen taking a new level of interest in campaigning activities by our candidates and the election rhetoric was consistently prevalent among our social media platforms.
Thus it is no surprise that our leading party paid great attention to developing their social media campaigns in an attempt to inform and involve the youth in each phase of the elections, contrarily the opposition lacked such efforts and the results reflected clearly this fact.. As the world progresses greater attention must be placed on developing Barbados digital economy, particularly in marketing our tourism product in the most efficient, timely ways as global markets become more competitive.
Going forward we hope that this trend of digital awareness continues to develop and the youth are given opportunities to utilize their creative & technological skills to generate revenues for themselves while pushing our island forward.
One may note that our current Prime Minister was able to amass thousands of social media followers in a matter of weeks, a practice which to date had not been seen by any of our past political leaders, who have overlooked one of the world’s most rapidly growing mediums of communication.
Reason 4: Accusations of Graft & Corruption
A lack of transparency within the operations & investments undertaken by our previous government has dissolved our faith in our previous parliamentary representatives, the tolerance of mediocrity resulted in a team of individuals incapable of efficiently carrying out their duties, with some officials going as far as to publicly point out their lack of education in their assigned sectors, but a “willingness to learn on the job”.
The act of misappropriating funds for their personal gain and unequal distribution of job opportunities among the local work force is highly correlated with the wealth inequalities prevalent in our homeland.
The promise of additional transparency and the curtailment of corruption by our new leaders was highly favored by among voters as Bajans hope to correct the atrocities carried out by the ministers of the past.
It is for these reasons, primarily, that I believe Barbados can look forward to a number of progressive developments behind our forward thinking leader, the Honorable Mia Mottley, her GOAL ORIENTED agenda and concise plans give our population a new hope for the country, one can only hope that the past doesn’t repeat itself and the promises made to the people of Barbados are genuine and implemented with the same vigor as the campaigning activities of our newly elected ministry.
