GILL NOT GIVING UP

“My ‘sell by date’ has not come as yet.”

Former Barbados Labour Party (BLP) candidate David Gill made this clear yesterday as he joined ranks with the island’s newest political organisation – Citizens Action Partnership (CAP).

Addressing the media at CAP’s launch yesterday at Sky Mall, he insisted that he has a lot more to contribute to the country’s political landscape.

Gill, who won the BLP seat for St. Michael South Central in 1999, was later defeated in three successive elections by incumbent Democratic Labour Party representative, Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy. Last year, the 61-year old was dealt another blow when a political newcomer was successful in the nomination bid to represent that constituency for the BLP in the next General Election, constitutionally due in 2018.

However, it was a confident Gill who told the members of the press yesterday that there was more left in the tank, especially when considering that many leaders of other countries were older than him.

Describing the island as “teetering on the edge of a depletion of its foreign reserves”, he underlined that it had no time to be led by persons selected by friends and family, but instead must look to those deserving due to merit.

“It is against this background that I present myself, knowing that I am not past my shelf-life. I am nowhere as old as Donald Trump. I I am nowhere as old as Teresa May in England, I am nowhere as old as Angela Merkel in Germany and coming home, I am nowhere as a old as the Prime Minister of Guyana or the Prime Minister of Trinidad. If all of these people are making their contribution internationally and regional, why can’t I make my contribution, having not even gone as close as the sell-by date in this country,” he added. (JMB)