Last Updated on November 27, 2025 12:23 pm by Editor
The news that the Barbados Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) is purging the list of electors by some 8,000 names should be welcome news to all Barbadians. Accuracy is definitely the best policy.
But as some cynical person once said: There are “lies, damned lies and statistics”. In case you have heard that line before but never quite got the gist or the essence of it, this what it means: statistics can be worse than ‘damned lies”!
Here is a simple hypothetical example to illustrate the point.
Principal says proudly to the media: “This year, our school achieved 80% passes in CXC Mathematics”. “Great!” says reporter. “And how many students did the school enter this year?”. “Five”, the principal replied after some hesitation.
We should not all doubt the intention of the EBC to clean up the voters list for the coming general election. But here is our question:
Just how ‘clean’ was the voters’ list back in 2022, the date of the last election?
And there is more. A check with the EBC website today shows that results of the 2022 election still have not yet been published. In other words, almost three years after the calling of a snap election in December 2021, in the middle of Covid19, the Barbados general election results of 2022 have not yet been posted by the EBC.
In fact, the only tally Barbadians have of the 2022 election results is that drawn up by the NationNews newspaper on the night of the election back in 2022. It is the same NationNews data that was referenced in an article by a contributor attempting to do a critical analysis of the 2022 results.
Question of Maturity
In seven short days, on 30th November, we will be celebrating the END of our 59th year of independence. That date is also billed as our fourth year of republic-hood. The next day is the start of our 60th year of independence. The attainment of this “ripe old age” should be the occasion for celebrating the political maturity of our democracy. But are we? Politically mature?
What does the non-publication of election results three years after the election say about our political maturity? In our opinion, not very much.
And what does the non-publication of election results three years after the fact say about our republic? The cynical might be inclined to dub the country as a mere banana republic.
Desperation
Not publishing election results, especially when they are likely to suggest that the government is illegitimate is one thing. But “interfering” in each other’s elections is a whole new level of desperation.
“Interference” is how some critics see the dispatch of a BLP delegation to St. Vincent last weekend in support of Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, leader of the Unity Labour Party and Prime Minister of St. Vincent. Mia Amor Mottley is Prime Minister of Barbados and leader of the Barbados Labour Party.
Dr. Gonsalves has been Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines since March 2001. That makes him the longest serving Prime Minister in the Caribbean: 24 unbroken years. Our guess is that, as a cricket enthusiast, Dr. Gonsalves wants to go for the quarter of a century. Happy batting!
But some might not see this as fun and games. In a NationNews report of Saturday 22 November, political scientist Professor Don Marshall is recorded as expressing disagreement with this practice of external interference in the political process of member nations of CARICOM.
On the other hand, Peter Wickham, a Barbadian political commentator and pollster, not surprisingly, sees no problem with this behaviour.
Incredibly, Dr. Gonsalves is alleging that the Prime Minister of T&T (Trinidad & Tobago), Kamla Persad Bessessar has operatives of her party in St. Vincent presumably fomenting opposition to his election.
But Dr. Gonsalves himself is alleged to have gone to Jamaica to support the PNP in its election bid back in September 2025. As it turns out, the JLP won the election, retaining power in Jamaica for another term. The hypocrisy here is choking.
But could it be that this “political interference” we are seeing is a new feature of Caribbean integration that we have not been told about; one not written into the Treaty of Chaguaramas, signed on July 4, 1973 to establish the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)?
So, are we looking here at variations on a theme or is this behaviour an example of what our calypsonians would call “picong”? Is it closer to what jazz musicians call “improvisation”; start with the basic melody and then “go as you please”?
Seriously though, whichever metaphor one adopts, this behaviour on the part of our elected representatives boils down to the same thing we see in the general society: a burgeoning disrespect for rules, borders and boundaries; a convenient blurring of the lines between legality and ethicality.
Conclusion
There was a time when to be called “the Honourable So-And-So” meant something special. That is now questionable. There was a time when our politicians were mostly about good governance and serving people. That era is becoming part of the passing parade.
Caribbean politicians of today are all about power and self-aggrandizement. Having drunk of the cup of power, they do not wish to let it go, even when they have nothing to offer or are effectively destroying the country. Like the USA government, we now have our own swamp and dedicated swamp creatures.
It is time we fixed this problem. It is time for the goodly people of the Caribbean to demand term limits and a change of our electoral system from the inherited first-past-the-post system to proportional representation which, by the way, has been adopted, in one form or another, by a majority of countries (over 130) in the world. These two measures should help considerably in ridding the political system of the reign of grifters and ‘desperadoes’ and maturing our democracy.
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