Barbados Today

With talk of gutter politics assuming prominence ahead of general election constitutionally due in the coming months, Member of Parliament (MP) Mara Thompson has urged members of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) not to go that route.

In fact, the wife of the later former Prime Minister David Thompson urged the current leader of the DLP Freundel Stuart to rise above attacks thrown by the opposition Barbados Labour Party (BL) and take the high road during the upcoming election campaign.

“I accept that this party is not immune to these vagaries but I urge my party leader to guard against the political cannibalism as we must be distinguishable from the other side,” she said this morning at the annual David Thompson Memorial Service held at St Margaret’s Anglican Church.

“David was known to have a sharp tongue and a gift for not mincing his words, but he always treated his opponents as humans. It saddens me today that our next election has the ability to divide this country even more.

“As a party and a Government, we must try to resist the temptation to arm our words that they so detonate to cause persons harm. This is not the DLP that I was introduced to,” Thompson added.

She accused the BLP of weaponizing and cultivating a new level of corrosive politics.

“I want to appeal to all within my hearing. We cannot create a post-independence Barbados where we are normalizing mediocrity undergirded by opposing for opposing sake,” she said.