The leader of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) is adamant that those seeking to make politics in this country a blood sport, will get no support from his political party and its supporters.
Prime Minister the Right Honourable Freundel Stuart made this clear last night, as he addressed a packed auditorium at the Alexandra School during a joint political meeting. In an address that lasted approximately an hour, Prime Minister Stuart sent a message out to his political opponents that politics is a vocation that must be taken seriously by anyone who seeks to join the political class, and they should not get involved in it for the wrong reasons.
“For a lot of these people, politics is not intended to be a serious vocation, it is supposed to be a glorified blood sport where the people, the masses who are supposed to vote, sit ringside and applaud political gladiators as they fight with one another; and applaud who wins and who loses or who got in a good blow. I’m not in that kind of politics and the Democratic Labour Party is not in that kind of politics.”
PM Stuart emphasized, “Politics for me can’t be fun playing off people against one another, trying to sully people’s reputations and bring this country into disrepute. That’s not what it is about and we have to get back to a rethinking of what politics is about. Politics is not a sport, politics is a vocation.”
He went further, contending that those engaged in politics have a duty to help the masses and improve their status.
“You can’t let people stay where they are, you have a duty to raise them. You are not in politics to confirm the mighty in their seats, you are in politics to exalt the humble and the meek. So I can’t identify myself with the kind of infantile and puerile politicking… that is not for us. It was not for Errol Barrow, it was not for David Thompson, it was not for Erskine Sandiford and it is not for Freundel Stuart,” he told the audience.
Referring to the upcoming general election constitutionally due next year, the Prime Minister said that the DLP has achieved a lot during its tenure in a number of areas including housing, health and energy and has to ensure it puts that case to the people.
“If you are talking housing, we have a case to put. You can cuss the Valery Housing Project as much as you like, ordinary people live in there. You can cuss Grotto as much as you like, ordinary people live in there. Lancaster I and II, people live in there… I don’t care what you say about the St. John Polyclinic, people are going there. So we don’t have anything of which we can be made to feel ashamed and we must go out there and fight, put the Party’s case,” he maintained.
He also referred to efforts to develop a renewable energy (RE) sector that would take care of the country’s energy challenges. Through such efforts, he noted that ordinary householders are able to generate their own energy and sell the excess to the grid of the power company. He said Barbados is in fact leading the RE charge in the Caribbean. He made the point as he said that this country is also a leader in the region as it relates to promoting the cultural industries and the talents of our people.
His comments came as he said the facts will be made available through the Party’s facts campaign and every effort will be made to ensure that the people of Barbados are made aware of them.
