PM Stuart: No going back!

The days of entitlement and bloodlines being responsible for persons attaining higher achievement in this country have long come to an end.

So says Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who said that the need to dismantle bloodline politics in this country is one of the reasons the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) was formed and the party has fought successfully against it over the years. With that in mind, he said such cannot be allowed to creep back into Barbadian politics.

He made the comments last night while rallying the troops at the launch of the Democratic Labour Party’s 2018 election campaign, dubbed ‘Do D Ting! Vote DEMS’ in the area outside the National Stadium.

“The Democratic Labour Party came into existence to end all of that, that is why we said we wanted to create a just society in Barbados, not bloodlines, not who your father is, or who your mother is, or who your grandparents are, or who your cousins are. No, no, no,” he maintained.

He added, “When noxious ideas are put into the atmosphere, put into the public domain, if you don’t kill them early they grow and then the time comes when it is too late to deal with them … when these things are put in the public domain they grow, they gain influence and then the time comes when it is too difficult to deal with them and that is what we are facing in Barbados tonight,” he told the crowd.

PM Stuart said such is not where he or the DLP want to see Barbados go. He made the point while reflecting on the national heroes, none of which he said depended on bloodlines to succeed, rather he stated it was “their discipline, their strength of character, their integrity, their honesty, their capacity for hard work, [and] their intellectual grasp of the issues around them”.

During the event, which drew hundreds to the area outside the National Stadium to hear from the ruling party, Stuart as he endorsed the candidate for St. Michael North East, Patrick Todd, called on the party’s supporters to give the DLP hopeful their full support, contending that he was a better fit for that constituency than the incumbent Mia Mottley, leader of the Barbados Labour Party.

“You have a choice between representation based on personal achievement and representation based on bloodlines, that for me is no choice in the 21st century… Not one person sitting behind me is where he or she is tonight based on their bloodline, all, every single one – hard work, sacrifice, effort, strength of character, personal integrity – these are the attributes, these are the values that have brought them to where they are tonight and we don’t wish it to be any different,” he maintained.