Eastmond: Count me out

POLITICAL leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Lynette Eastmond has spoken out against the contentious issue of vote buying in Barbados and says she wants no part of it when the bell is rung.

She was speaking in Eden Lodge on Sunday evening in support of UPP’s newest candidate Maria Phillips who will be coming up against Ronald Toppin for the St. Michael North constituency.

Eastmond in a fiery presentation told the modest crowd: “I have no intention of seeking to buy any vote in the next election. Buying votes is against the law. Receiving bribes is against the law. I have no intention of anybody seeing me jucking $200 at anybody and the next thing you see me with my hands behind my back going in a prison van.”

“It would happen to members of the UPP and for years people have been doing it and nothing ain’t happen to them. People have seen them committing the offence of bribing the elector and for some reason they have never been arrested and they have never been charged.”

“So at the beginning of every election in Barbados you have a crew of people who say that they want one person or another in Parliament and it starts out by breaking every single election law that you can think of. And they then look at young people and say that they are bad... But what is the example that is shown on the eve of the constitution of a new set of people who will govern Barbados? Every law is broken. Every single law,” she exhorted.

She pointed to the exorbitant cost of mounting a campaign which she says is another way of keeping certain people out of politics.

“Politics has now become the most expensive thing to engage in. That is the other way to keep Barbadians out of politics, you make it as expensive as possible. Everybody to stand a chance must plaster the whole country in posters and billboards... millions of dollars to put paper on a pole to ask you to vote. You should ask yourself why. By the time the posters start going up you know who the candidate is. So why spend all of that money? It is to keep people out,” she argued. (JH)