PM keeps electorate guessing but warns ruling party is now awake

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Mar 18, CMC – Prime Minister Fruendel Stuart has likened his ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) to a “sleeping giant (that is) dangerous when awaken” as he continued to keep the electorate guessing as to the date for the next general election in Barbados.
Addressing the opening of a DLP office in the St. Peter constituency office on Sunday night, Stuart again referred to his decision not to name the date for the poll when the Parliament was dissolved earlier this month.
He told supporters that there have been several discussions regarding the date for the election that must be held within 90 days following the dissolution of Parliament and criticised the main opposition Barbados Labour Party (BLP) of telling the electorate that it has the answers to the socio-economic problems facing Barbados.
“Parliament stood dissolved from earlier this month…and there has been a lot of chatter coming out of the Barbados Labour Party over the fact that no election date has yet been announced. As I said last Sunday…an election date is going to be announced and as I said in 2013, I don’t know what all the hurry is about and election day is going to come that election is going to be fought and it is going to be won,” he told supporters.
“Nobody understood what I was saying at the time. I am saying it again tonight, the date is going to come. The election is going to be fought and it is going to be won and I hope that when those who are calling for it end up gnashing their teeth that they would not hold me responsible for it,” he said, adding “those who do not have teeth can gnash gums”.
He told supporters that when the DLP not yet entered the campaign “everybody was saying it is only a matter of the date, it’s over.
“I said again in 2013, the Democratic Labour Party is a sleeping giant (and) dangerous when awaken and that sleeping giant has now been awaken and will clear everything away from its path as we go through the next election.”
Stuart said he remains confident that the party would win all the northern constituencies in the election.
He said the new campaign office in St. Peter, the constituency which had been represented by former prime minister Owen Arthur for several years, would now be “the staging post from which our battles in St. peter will be fought …from which we will launch an assault on the northern part of Barbados.
“Not a hostile assault. An assault to get these constituencies in the north in the fold of the Democratic Labour Party,” he said, urging supporters to ensure the party wins the six seats in the north of the island.
“We intend to change the political map of Barbados after that date you will hear about in the very very near future,” Prime Minister Stuart told DLP supporters.
In the last general election, the DLP won 16 of the 30 seats with the remainder going to the BLP.